How it all began....

Back in June of 2022, I had decided that the band I was in at the time had run it's course. I was the drummer, I've always been the drummer. Since I was 15 years old, I was drumming in a band somewhere. I'd had enough, I grew tired of the loading and unloading of the drums, my shoulders were becoming an issue, I was just done playing the drums.

So there I was , with no band. For the first time in decades, I had no band. Fast forward to November of 2022, I was sitting on my back patio, thinking about maybe playing guitar in a band, I've played guitar privately since I was 13 or so. Given the fact that I had always been focused on the drum parts of a song, I didn't know too many on guitar. I felt that I wouldn't be able to just join a working band due to my limited list of songs. Most musicians know hundreds of songs. I knew maybe 30. I figured that if I'd I wanted to play guitar, I'd need to start a band from scratch, I also assumed that I'd have to sing. Well, I've always felt that my singing voice was... Limited. I did sing some songs as the drummer but not many. I was comfortable with singing the likes of, John mellencamp, Eddie Money even Bryan Adams. I had thought about those performers, but, the catalog of music from them wasn't big enough to build a band around.

Then as if out of nowhere....Bob Seger.....I thought, I could probably sing Seger. I never sang a Seger song before but I felt that he was in the same vein as those other guys.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is a veteran vocalist and he warned me that Bob Seger voice is

" deceptively high". That didn't scare me ...I was going to try it anyway!

I called a former band mate, James West, and told him about this idea and asked if he was interested. He said he was, we went to another former band mate, Chris Latimer, and asked him to play lead guitar. I was adamant about using Chris for the lead player, he is the king of tone. I had spoken to a local drummer a year before about taking my drummer spot in my prior band, that never happened but I didn't forget about him, so the next call was to Rob Ritter to ask him to play drums, he was happy to do it. I was in a band with Chris and James at one time, we had a bass player who could play just about any instrument.

So we tagged Doug Lelesch for keyboard. We picked up an old school friend, Bev Burke, for backing vocals. We held some auditions and picked up Tom Levak for bass guitar and voila....we had a band. Since November of 2022, the band has gone through changes, all bands do. Today we have 10 members, all highly talented. Against the Wind has reached levels that I personally never expected. I am grateful for everything that the band had done. We're just a group of friends having the time of our lives playing music......who could ask for anything more.

Thank you to everyone who has ever attended a show, bought merchandise, followed us on social media....we wouldn't be here if not for YOU! Thank you!

Gene McMath

Lead vocals

Rythym Guitar