Between the three of them, members of The Gary Gerard Group have been rocking for nearly a century. Now they’ve put their love for playing, musical knowledge and talent into a seven-song CD titled “Ground Zero.” A release party for the EP starts at 8 p.m. Saturday at Huntington Street Bar & Grill, 704 N. Huntington St., Syracuse, with 3G taking the stage from 9 p.m. to midnight. The trio started out with Gary Gerard on guitar, John DeGroff on bass and their first drummer in 2008. “We played one gig in ’07 and started in ’08,” DeGroff said. Four different drummers played with them from 2008 until Mel Pouch joined in 2013. Pouch is still playing with the band. DeGroff was the original bass player and founding member of Petra, a Christian rock band back in the 1970s. “That was 1972 in Fort Wayne, and I was in it until ’78. I played on the first two albums,” DeGroff recalled. “I’ve done everything from biker bars to casinos; some major concerts to some concerts where we had more people on stage than in the audience.” He also played in another band called Cosmonaut Bob, a “jazz-fusion kind of thing that never went anywhere.” Another of DeGroff’s projects, GHF, includes two other founding members of Petra. DeGroff also has unofficially released his own album titled “Demos & Other Moments.” Some of the songs on that CD are songwriter demos while others are crosses between jazz and prog rock. Pouch originally is from the Austin, Texas, area, having played in several bands there. He came to this area in 2004 and has been working in northern Indiana bands for years, including the Wade Burleson band. Gerard first started playing in local bands back in the 1980s and has been playing out ever since. He took several years off when his kids were little, but never lost the desire. Over the years he’s played in Kontraband, EZAXS, The Groove, Flashbacks, The Relics and others. As for the music of 3G, Gerard said they play a blend of classic rock and blues rock, “plus the original stuff. Just kind of your basic 4/4 rock ’n’ roll.” “Straight-up rock,” DeGroff added. “For me it’s what I grew up with, I’m pretty sure these guys did, too,” Gerard said, and DeGroff agreed. “It’s what works around here. It’s what people want to hear around here,” DeGroff said. When they’re doing cover songs, Gerard said they’ll perform music by artists like ZZ Top, old Cream, John Mellencamp, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd and rocked-up versions of old pop rock bands like Tommy Roe. “That’s the stuff we play out around here to try and get people dancing and keep the bar owners happy. But we also play things that you don’t hear. We cover Chris Duarte, Gary Moore, Popa Chubby, just kind of the out-of-the-mainstream stuff that we like to play. And then we do our original stuff. Right now we’re doing seven originals, which are the ones that are on the CD. We’ve got other ones in the works,” Gerard explained. He said many of the originals are songs he’s written over “years and years.” The songs on the CD are “Just Rock” – a song about dancing, good times and rock music; “Ground Zero” – written shortly after 9/11; “Live For You” – about a relationship; “Gone” – about lost opportunities; “Chicago to Memphis” – about booze and a bad bet; “My Big Black Cat Don’t Like the Blues” – a true story about a rescue cat and a boom box, with words by DeGroff; and “King of the Tab” – a song about spending too much time and money in a bar. Copies of 3G’s EP will be available at Saturday’s release party to purchase for $7. “It’s just fun, to have something to sell at our shows,” Gerard said. “We have enough originals, why not do it, you know?” DeGroff commented. The band also will have T-shirts and tank tops for sale Saturday. If anyone can’t get to Saturday’s event, 3G will try to make copies of the EP available at local retail stores. The Gary Gerard Group has a Facebook page and a website at garygerardgroup.com
