Quintels/Kwintels Jerry Zubal’s long rock ‘n roll career first picked up steam in the basement band, The Quintels (also known as Bobby & The Quintels and The Kwintels).  The group became very popular all over Michigan and played at many of the area’s hotspots.  Although Zubal has narrowly missed a couple of opportunities to possibly break with national recording artists, he has nonetheless performed with many top local rock bands throughout his musical career.  Now a guitar teacher who owns his own recording studio, he currently enjoys working on various projects to keep his hands and mind busy… Jerry Zubal Recalls The Quintels/Kwintels I believe that my interest in music was first inspired by listening to my grandfather play guitar and mandolin during our annual summer visits to his home in Linton, Indiana. My earliest memories of this were probably at the age of four or five in 1954-1955. At the age of six or seven the highlight of the week for me was watching The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, a late Fifties television sitcom that featured Ricky Nelson singing and playing guitar with his band. It was not Ricky, but James Burton, his lead guitarist, that captured my attention.   I started taking guitar lessons  from Joyce Love, a month before I turned eight. She opened a music studio offering accordion, piano and guitar lessons in my home town of Rochester, Michigan. She taught a weekly private lesson and then would bring students of similar ability together for a weekly band practice that usually included a few guitarists, some accordionists and one piano player. To find new students she made random calls using numbers from the local phone book. She called our house and my mother told her that her youngest son showed an interest in the guitar. At age twelve or so, I attempted to form a band. This went on for a year or so with friends from school making up the band members. This was interrupted by a call made to my guitar teacher by Jim Barnowski, manager of a band from a neighboring town, looking for a student that might be ready to play in a band. I replaced the rhythm player who injured his hand. We rehearsed a few times and as near as I can remember played one school dance before breaking up. The band was called The Royal Continentals.  I proceeded to put my efforts back into forming a band which eventually became The Quintels. At some point there were five members, hence the “Quin” in Quintels. This type of name was very typical for the early Sixties.  Jerry Zubal and Tom Ward, November 1963. Early members included Tom Ward on guitar and Brian Pearsall on drums.  Tom Faulkender replaced Tom Ward and brought his younger brother Tim on alto sax. Soon Dan Bommer replaced Brian on drums. I contacted Jim to see if he had any interest in managing another band. He came by for a listen and then proceeded to find jobs for us to play. For a short time the band was called Jerry Z and The Quintels, but after adding Bob Hinshaw as lead vocalist the name was changed to Bobby and The Quintels. Around this time I remember Jim taking us all to a concert at Olympia stadium in Detroit.  Somehow Jim managed to get us backstage to meet and have photos taken with The Shangri-Las, Jay and The Americans and The Beach Boys. He used the photos to promote us. Unfortunately those pictures have all disappeared. Jim probably has copies but we have lost track of him. They’d be great pictures to have and post on this Web site. The original Bobby & The Quintels line-up. Jim kept us busy playing school dances and teen clubs that were plentiful in the area but the member changes were not done. We had a job booked that Dan could not play because his parents had planned a vacation. Jim suggested we have Mike Roush, drummer for The Swing Kings substitute. Mike soon became a member. Then a friend of mine from early elementary school, Bryan Barnes that had moved away, returned to the area and had started playing guitar. We added him to the lineup and soon after Tom and Tim left.  So now it was Bob Hinshaw on vocals, Mike Roush on drums and vocals, Bryan Barnes on guitar and vocals and me on guitar and vocals.  We still had no bassist.  Bryan had a friend at school, Greg Ballard, that was eager to learn the bass. Their plan was to have Bryan teach him some guitar and then get a bass and introduce him to the rest of us. It worked. Greg learned fast, bought a bass and an amplifier, and became the missing link.  We played just about every high school dance for miles around, as well as a slew of teen clubs and private parties. We where busy every weekend. From the beginning, Jim insisted we dress properly, act professionally and not bring our girlfriends to gigs. He would actually rent limousines so we would arrive at the gigs like stars, even at high school dances. In those days that was very effective.  The Quintels and Paul Revere & The Raiders Two gigs really stand out in my memory. Jim would promote small venue concerts from time to time.  Both of these concerts took place at an old theater in Lake Orion.  Once he was able to get Paul Revere and The Raiders to headline, with us opening for them. They showed up with no equipment so they had to use ours. We had no keyboard so they just stuck a microphone in an old upright piano that happened to be there. The other concert featured Freddy Cannon. This time we had to learn several of his songs like 'Palisades Park,' 'Transistor Sister' and the dedication song to back him up. We rehearsed with him for a few hours before the show and it went great. We played a lot of British material along with the most popular American songs including those by The Stones, Beatles, Animals, Kingsmen, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Standells, Beach Boys, Music Machine, Herman’s Hermits, Kinks, Zombies, Dave Clark Five, Hollies, Young Rascals, and Buckinghams--whatever was on the radio that we thought was cool. We were a darn good cover band and well-liked in our little world. We never really thought too much about original material although I wish we would have. Bryan wrote a few songs that were pretty good but we never recorded them. We did record two covers that still exist on worn out acetate: 'Because I Love Her,' a Human Beings song and 'Little Latin Lupe Lu,' the Kingsmens' arrangement.   About fifteen years ago I ran into a guy who told me his parents had a video of Bobby and The Quintels.  He loaned it to me so I could copy it. It was taped sometime around 1964 at a private party when we were all about 14 or 15 years old. Unfortunately it has no sound.  Bobby & The Kwintels 1964/1965 During the early '60s southeastern Michigan had many opportunities for young musicians to play, dream and make a little money. Besides school dances there was a plethora of teen cubs. Some of the ones we played included The Grosse Point Hideout, The Clawson Hideout, Birmingham Teen Center, two Crows Nests, Hullabaloo, Platter Box, Elizabeth Lake Beach Club, Mister Z’s, Silverbell Hideout, Something Different, Shearwood Forest, Caseville Danceland, The Tawns House in Traverse City, Gaylord Teen Chalet, and many more that escape me.  There were other groups from Rochester. Some had members that were former guitar students of mine when I taught guitar for my first guitar teacher at her studio and then later at Music City, a local music store. The groups I remember most were We Who Are and The Whereabouts. There were also The Hillsmen, Fundametal Building Blocks, Deadwood Stage, The Psycics and many more.  The Kwintels Things were going pretty good until sometime just before our sophomore year.  Jim, our manager, had taken on the management of more groups--The Bottles of Goodness and Panic and The Pack are the ones I remember. For reasons I can’t recall, The Quintels and Jim parted ways. That’s when we discovered that he had registered the band name and would not let us use it. We simply changed the spelling to "Kwintels" and continued to exist as Bobby & The Kwintels until Bob’s parents decided it was time to end their son’s rock 'n' roll life and send him to military school. The Kwintels went on for three of our best years. We obtained new management that came more in the form of really good sound technology. Dick Espenshade and Dick Krusecamp built an extremely fine sound system for us compared to what was available at the time and they also supplied us with a van with the band name painted on the side. We did add a keyboard player, Frank Millard, just prior to competing in a teen fair battle of the bands at Cobo Hall in Detroit sponsored by Fender Guitars and, if I remember right, American Airlines. We performed Tommy James and The Shondells' 'I Think We’re Alone Now' and TheYoung Rascals' 'Mickey’s Monkey.' It came down to us and a group called The Buoys. It was close until the end but they took us by one point on the final day.   We received a lot of respect by other musicians and fans and continued to play a lot of gigs until sometime during our senior year. We became regulars at The Silverbell Hideout, The Clawson Hideout, The Birmingham Palladium and others. These clubs were managed by Ed “Punch” Andrews or one of his partners. Punch was well known as Bob Seger’s manager and still is. Most recently he managed Kid Rock. I don’t really remember exactly what brought about the breakup sometime in 1968, but Bryan Barnes, Mike Roush and I are still good friends and keep in touch.  I know that Bryan still plays music in South Carolina and Mike plays in Kalamazoo. We have lost touch with Bob Hinshaw, Greg Ballard, and Frank Millard, although it would be great to hear from them and organize a reunion jam.  The last job The Kwintels played was at The Clawson Hideout. That night I was approached by a guy that I recognized as the bass player for another local band. This guy was Glenn Fry (later of The Eagles) and his band at the time was called The Mushrooms. He had heard that my band was breaking up and was wondering if I would be interested in getting together with him since his band was also breaking up. We set up a time to meet at his house on Lincoln Street in Royal Oak for a rehearsal. I remember the rehearsal went pretty well and we set up a time for another. When I showed up a couple weeks later, who ever answered the door told me Glenn had left for Phoenix. That was the end of that. Years later I meet Bob Wilson who had played with Glenn in a band called The Subterraneans. Bob told me that The Kwintels were a band the he and Glenn enjoyed hearing. I’ve always considered that a great compliment. Tea promotional photo. Soon after The Kwintels broke up, Mike and I got together with Gary Gawinek, former lead singer of We Who Are and Phil Nye, a successful local folk singer and guitarist, and bass player Tom Weshler to form Tea.  Bill Doral, former drummer of We Who Are, replaced Mike Roush on drums, Eg Mahan replaced Tom on bass and we added Don Lucking on keyboards.  The early line up of Tea was managed by Joe Aramini, the brother of the owner of Music City, the music store where I worked giving guitar lessons. This band played heavier rock covers and original songs. We opened for Iron Butterfly at The Grande Ball Room in Detroit in addition to the regular circuit. This lineup also found an audience in Louisville, Kentucky at a place called The Kaleidoscope. A year later, after Rick James, former lead singer of Panic and The Pack, replaced Gary, we returned to Louisville to play at a rock theater and the same weekend at the state fair ground auditorium opening for Steppenwolf and Strawberry Alarm Clock.  This was the late '60s to the early '70s. I should mention that at no time can I remember any of these bands practicing in a garage. In Michigan, most houses had basements which would make us “basement bands." The new line up of Tea played some very interesting gigs due to our new manager, Ann Marston, who worked as an agent for The Gail and Rice Talent Agency in Detroit. We played Lynn Ford’s debutant party with Bonnie and Delaney and The Les Brown Orchestra at The Henry Ford Jr. mansion, and a convention for head librarians from all over the country that took place at Cobo Hall. There was a Canadian TV show hosted by Robin Seymour, a local deejay, called Swinging Time that we appeared on. Around this time, Bob Seger’s bass player Dan Honaker, broke an arm and I fit the bill for someone who could learn a set's worth of material in a hurry to sub for him. I tore up my fingers rehearsing and playing two shows, one in Kalamazoo at a college and one in Cleveland at a club called The Rock Shop. That night Bob asked me to switch instruments with him to do a blues jam. That evening on the way home he asked me if would consider becoming his guitarist. I accepted, but during the first rehearsal we bumped heads over a solo issue and I walked out. Soon after Drew Abbot became his guitarist and I returned to Tea. 1776 promotional photo. Rick left Tea and Bryan Barnes, formerly with The Kwintels, joined as our new lead singer. Ann Marston’s sudden death left us stunned and with no management. Ed Andrews offered his services and suggested a name change. We became 1776 and with the name came a record album released on our new manager’s label, Palladium Records. The LP contained two covers: The Byrd’s song 'Jesus is Just Alright' and Dave Mason’s 'Only You Know and I Know,' which was to be the first single but Bonnie and Delaney released the Dave Mason song first. We released 'Jesus is Just Alright' with an original of Bryan’s on the flip side as our first and only single. This record got air play and charted in various regions of the country including one of Detroit’s biggest stations, WKNR--although most will remember The Byrds' version released before ours and a couple of years later the Doobie Brothers hit.  1776 did one short tour including an outdoor concert with Lynyrd Skynyrd on a beach in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Several groups were supposed to play but it rained hard for a couple of days prior and they all left except us and Skynyrd. We just traded off sets all day to a great crowd.  We also opened for Lee Michaels once in Akron, Ohio. Bryan and the band wrote another album's worth of material but it was never recorded because it was deemed not commercial enough by the powers that be. We soon broke up although we could have worked solid for the next two years on the strength of the single and LP according to our agent at DMA Booking. We were just too discouraged to continue.  I had been in contact with the former Kwintel drummer Mike Roush and very soon we put together a new group called Cain with Mike Sneed and Dale Kath on guitar and bass. We were all singers so we were able to do a variety of covers including Led Zeppelin, Moody Blues, Mountain, and Steely Dan songs. We played the Michigan bar circuit for about eight months solid. We didn’t last long but it was a great group to play with. Then I moved to California. Eg Mahan and Joe Aramini, the road management for Rare Earth, offered me a position with the road crew for their next tour and I accepted. It was a chance to get out to California with a job that paid good with all expenses covered. Even though this only lasted about three months, I got to see a lot of the country and experience a lot of rock 'n' roll. I also got a chance to jam with a bunch of great players, including Buddy Miles. After the Rare Earth tour ended I began to look for a band to play with and somehow got an audition with a guy named Domingo Samudio. I didn’t realize who he was until I met him. The short lived group was called Sam The Sham and Friends. We played a couple of jobs and then one at the famous Whisky.  I saw Joe Cocker sitting at the bar and Bette Midler standing right in front of the band while we played. After the show Bernie Taupin (Elton John’s lyricist) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin bassist) walked into the dressing room to say hello to Sam. I was star struck.  Rockicks: Jerry, Rick, Sammy and Brian. Within a few months I got together with Sammy Pate, bass player from Georgia and Bryan Naughton, a L.A. guitarist that already enjoyed some fame with The Grassroots. This was the beginning of a group we called Rockit. We went through several drummers including a weekend with Mike Roush, former Kwintel drummer, before finding Rick Altschuler. Oh, in California, this was definitely a garage band. We played around L.A. doing covers and working on originals for a couple years before knocking on doors. After a few refusals we signed with The Toby Organization, a management company that had Angel, Legs Diamond and Quiet Riot in their stable. We signed a recording deal with RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization) and released an album but not until they changed our name to Rockicks. This was about 1976, smack dab in the middle of the disco era. We played some shows around town for about a year and were released from the label along with a couple other groups the same day. The band continued to write and record on our own and attempted to get a new deal. One day at practice we just decided to throw in the towel. I have a concert video of this band that I hope to soon post on YouTube.  You can still find information about that album on the Internet. A reissued CD is available from a Web site called heavyrock.com that has three bonus tracks on it. Prior to Rockicks signing the RSO deal, we were the houseband for quite a while at a club called The Rock Corporation. This club was one block off of Van Nuys Blvd. in the San Fernando Valley during the mid-Seventies. After we did the LP, we played a couple more times on weekends with new bands opening for us. There were several, one of which was a very young Van Halen. In fact, I think their manager at the time was Eddie's and Alex's mother.  I don't think they were called Van Halen yet, but it was definitely the original lineup. Rockicks did a pretty heavy version of the Kinks' 'You Really Got Me' that night.  Funny how things work out. To the best of my knowledge, Sammy is still playing and Brian has a group called The Naughtones that has gained some success and has at least one CD available online.  Unfortunately Rick Altschuler, "The Commander” as we called him, passed away a few years ago. He is surely missed by everyone that knew him. Rick was a solid drummer. After Rockicks broke up I got a call to do a session with Doug Ingle, former lead singer of Iron Butterfly. They needed a drummer so I asked Ed Houlehan, a friend from my home town that had just moved to L.A., to come along. We still have a copy of that session. Before leaving California to come back to Michigan in 1978, I worked pretty hard on a couple of original recording projects. I had met actress Terry Moore through a mutual friend and wrote music for several of her lyrics. She introduced me to Roger Christian, who also gave me lyrics to work with. The songs were recorded and this got me a publishing contract with Piccasso/Queens Legs Music, who also published Steve Stills. Once again, nothing really came of it. When I returned to Michigan I got together with Ted Pearson, who was reforming his band called Pendragon. Ted had done one LP under the name The Phantom, released on Capitol Records, which in everyone’s opinion sounded suspiciously a lot like The Doors. The single 'Calm Before the Storm' caused some panic over whether Jim Morrison was actually dead. I think this album is still available on the Internet as a reissued CD. Pendragon included drummer Jeff Johnson, guitarist Chris Marshall, keyboard player Bob Ellis and Ted on bass. You guessed it; we did a lot of Doors material.  Next was Powerplay, which included Jeff and Chris from Pendragon with John Heaton on bass. Neither of these groups lasted much more than a year but both were worth the trip. After a brief sabbatical I was lured by Tony Dean and Dyke Price into a country band that turned out to be a good experience--not to mention good money. Talley Creek's original line up was Tony on bass, Gene Brezze on drums, Dyke on Guitar and me. Later, Chet Williams replaced Dyke and for a short time we added Al Flat as a front man. Talley Creek played the country circuit in Michigan that was fueled by the urban cowboy craze. We recorded one 45-rpm single. The song 'Cowboy In The Whitehouse,' was penned by my friend Gary Gawinek, former member of Tea and We Who Are. The flipside was an uptempo rockabilly version of Hank Williams' 'Hey Good Lookin'.' We managed to get it played on a couple of Detroit radio stations until the powers that be deemed it too radical political satire--although it did help to get us jobs and we sold a few copies. I still have a couple boxes in the basement.  Talley Creek gradually morphed into an oldies band with the addition of Rick Stockwell on guitar and piano and Larry Terry and sax, flute and keys. We changed the name to The Wingtips. We landed a houseband gig at The Highkicker Saloon in Pontiac, Michigan that lasted a few years and included opening a monthly concert featuring big name country acts. Soon the crowd was calling us The Fabulous Wingtips. Tony Dean left and Danny Crabtree became the new bass player. One evening while in town doing a show with Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis sat in. We did all his hits in the same key and rocked the packed house. What a great memory that is! About this time I was beginning to get tired of the bar scene and needed a lifestyle change. I left The Wingtips. They continued with a couple more member changes and changed the name to The Thunderoad Band. Within a year or so Rick Stockwell died of cancer but not until the original Wingtips went into a studio and recorded a few songs with Rick on the piano.  My music career was just about over when Dan Crabtree talked me into getting back on my horse to rock some more. We formed The Austin Band to play just weekends but it soon turned into a little more than that. With Dan and I, Jim Lewis on drums and Dale Peters on sax and bass, we worked for a year or so until once again I had had enough. Marlin Young replaced me and they continued with a few more member changes as The Austin Band. Recently Marlin became a member of Kid Rock’s band. I am now a busy guitar teacher with about sixty students a week and have a recording studio. I call it Green Room Productions. It’s where I enjoy working on various projects to keep my hands and mind busy. I enjoy a lot of good memories, some I mentioned and some I’ll probably think of later. What I didn’t mention is that I have a son and a daughter from my first marriage, both born during my California days. They are the platinum records I never received. I am very proud of their accomplishments. So far my son has made me a grandfather twice and my daughter and her husband are working on a family. Maybe I’ll have an update soon. Last but not least, I thank God for the woman to whom I am married to now. She has made life after rock 'n' roll worth living. 2010 Reunion The Quintels/Kwintels performed in September 2010 for a very well-received reunion event.  According to Jerry, "The reunion was a knock out! A packed club, maybe 600 people all there to see us. So much energy, so much enthusiasm. When we took the stage cameras were flashing like a red carpet Hollywood thing. I think I might have been blushing. We rocked and the crowd responded like crazy. I am not exaggerating. This whole thing was video taped with three cameras and recorded 8-track Digidesign and 16-track Adat. The DVD is forth coming.  It was far beyond my expectations and I feel like a kid that just had the best Christmas ever and now it over. Ah, but it's not! Bryan will be back around Christmas and we are planning a P A R T Y! with live music and a Santa at a private hall. There were so many past and current friends there to witness this event from all over the country."  To view Kwintels' videos, visit their YouTube page. The Quintels/Kwintels, 2010 Quintels/Kwintels Gallery Image: