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Brandon's Equipment
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Brandon Heiner began singing at an early age as a member of various performing arts groups that performed throughout the east coast. Originally influenced heavily by the musical tastes of his parents, he was raised primarily on country music, learning to sing to the music of groups like The Statler Brothers and Alabama. Later he found rock-n-roll and lists U2, The Counting Crows and Guns-n-Roses, as major musical influences.
His first rock band was a group called Raising Cain. They played horrible early 80’s rock and putzed around playing in Southern Idaho for a while. In 1994, Brandon left to attend college, and after a short stint with a group called The Beavers (a side project of some members from The Aquabats) Brandon soon assembled his second group, a progressive rock band called The Cage. Consisting of Brandon, Jason Howard, Freddy Rio, and Dana Wade, The Cage played regularly, making just enough money to keep their equipment running. In 1998, Brandon and a friend, drummer Treg Scott, formed a new alternative rock band; added guitarist Chris Stanley and bassist Mica Norr and called the group Moon-Ja-Na.
Brandon moved to Northern Viginia in 2000 where he found his lost brothers in the members of Heather’s Headache.
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Joe's Equipment
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Growing up in Central Europe, in the heartland of classical music, Jozsef was nursed on Hayden, Vivaldi and other chart toppers, like Rachmaninoff. It is to no surprise that he played the violin since the age of six and toured Europe as part of a youth symphony when he was twelve years old. Much to the dismay of Mozart and Beethoven, he got his first electric guitar (a Russian made Opus – if I recall correctly) at the age of 10. Although he continued his classical music education, he decided that guitars were definitely cooler, which realization ended up starting off his affair with rock and roll music.
In high school Jozsef went on to front the band “Szellemsheriff” (Ghost-sheriff) which was an alternative rock band playing a few covers but mainly originals composed by Jozsef and the other band members. The band recorded one album “Sejt es a Leg” (Cell and the Air) then disbanded due to the keyboard player's spontaneous combustion on stage or some other misfortunate, but completely unlikely event like that.
Maybe it was to complement his classical European influence in music with blues, jazz, and rock and roll, maybe just not being satisfied with the general music scene in Hungary, Jozsef moved to the United States in 1994 where in college in addition to economics he took jazz improvisation and jazz theory. In his freshman year he joined and toured around as the rhythm and lead guitar player of Sofa, the Provo, Utah based funk rock band, which later became even more comfortable and was renamed Loveseat. The band members considered an ultimate come-back under the name of “California King”, but by then most of the band’s audience were asleep… Sofa gigged most frequently in Park City and Salt Lake City and has been made famous by such evergreens as “Funky Chicken”, “Navajo Taco” and most famous “Somewhatsuave” (to imitate Jozsef’s last name).
The most prevailing influences in Jozsef’s world of tonality and musical essence are purveyed by the eclectic mixture of Ives, Bartok, Pink Floyd, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Kraftwerk, The Killers, Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie, BB King, Wes Montgomery, et al.
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Dave's Equipment
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Dave Charbonneau began playing music in the Northern Virginia area when he picked up the saxophone in elementary school. Throughout high school Dave played sax every chance he could. He focused mainly on jazz, swing, and big band. He played lead alto sax in the school jazz band and played throughout the area in places like Wolftrap, at functions for the Treasury Department, and Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.
Through college Dave continued playing the sax, and shortly after college he picked up the guitar for the first time. He immediately fell in love with guitar and played mainly in jam situations and with pickup groups. Through these informal sessions he was able to become a solid rhythm guitarist reasonably quickly thanks to a lot of good advice from the people he played with. A couple years later, drummer friend Steve Surtees said "If I throw a drum stick into a crowd, chances are I'll hit a guitarist. Ever thought of playing bass?" That was all it took, and within a month Dave was learning the bass.
Dave's main musical influences are the likes of U2, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Living Color, Tom Petty, Bob Marley, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and The Allstonians.
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James' Equipment
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James' interest in playing the drums began in toddlerhood, when banging on pots and pans was extremely entertaining (loud, but entertaining). Later, in second grade, a "big 6th grader" performed a drum solo in a school talent show, and James was sold on the notion that drums were a whole lot more fun than piano. Alas, his parents were not sold, so piano it was for several more years. He knows a grand total of one song on the piano after all of that (Faithfully, by Journey). The monotony of playing it over and over drives his wife crazy. But we digress.
Beginning in high school, James became friends with legendary drummer Nathan Merrill, the star drummer in the Skyline High School (Utah) Jazz Band, which ranked extremely well nationally. Nate taught James the basics and was generous enough to allow James to play on his set. James would like to take this opportunity to thank Nate for his time and friendship. James would also like to thank Nate's mother, Marcia, for her endless patience in tolerating two drummers disturbing the peace regularly for several years.
Following Nate's lead, James purchased a full DW drumset with Sabian cymbals and DW hardware. He has played with several bands and numerous very talented musicians (and some not-so-talented ones as well, but we won't name names). In Salt Lake City, UT, he played with Pieces of Eight. In Charlottesville, VA, he played with the Wooden Nickels and Sonic Soul. In Alexandria, VA, he is privledged to play with Heather's Headache. He is also grateful to his wife, Heather (namesake of the band) for putting up with and trying to sleep through the "noise" created in the basement on Friday evenings after 8:00 p.m.
James lists his percussion influences as Steve Smith of Journey, Neil Peart of Rush (of course - is there any rock drummer that doesn't list Neil in his influences?), and Carter Beauford of The Dave Matthews Band.
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