I was wondering. . .

[seichu kaisho]

Were any of the past or present Petra members involved in high school bands?

[Shell]

The Schlittmeister, Louie and Ronny were, and I'm pretty sure Paul and Greg B. started playing in bands at a young age. I don't know about the others, but I would imagine many of them started out in music at young ages.

[calicowriter]

Now John HAD a band when he was in high school, but I don't know that he played IN his high school band. He was a drum major for his high school marching band, which I'd pay good money to see film of that. After all, the main requirements for a drum major are having rhythm and being a ham. I think we can agree he has those attributes!

[Susannah]

Ronny played in his high school's jazz band, as well as being in other bands with his friends, during high school. Some of his friends that he played with were Geof Barkley and Roscoe Meek, both of whom went on the play with Geoff Moore and the Distance. Geof also went on the play keys for Third Day for several years, and Roscoe has played for a lot of Christian artists, including Rebecca St. James and Steven Curtis Chapman. Just a bit of CCM trivia for ya.

[Michael]

You know, I had to drive right past Ronny's church in Shreveport to get to my church when I was in high school. I even attended their "Youth Quake" services a time or two. It's conceivable that at some point, I was probably in the same meeting Ronny was in when we were both teenagers. Too bad I wasn't more outgoing, or I might have had a big-time inside track with Petra later on!! hehe

[yamasaaaki har har]

Schlittmeister as a drum major - wow I didn't know that. I wonder if he put on his uniform and directed the Los Alamitos band with a baton when they played the intro on "This Means War" ?

I wonder what kinda repertoire marching bands played in the 60s? Probably just Karl King and Sousa stuff I'm guessing. Nowadays bands have all sorts of rock and pop music arranged for them. In high school and college I've played wind/percussion arrangements of stuff from West Side Story, Riverdance, Grand Funk Railroad, and Styx - just to name a few.


If I had the ability and the time (and a Finale program), I would definitely arrange Petra and Stryper songs for marching or pep band. Man, if I were able to do that, that would be so cool - but the problem is that if I had a band "test play" the song it probably would come out worse than I had expected. (Arranging or writing music for multiple instruments must be a complex task and I greatly admire those who do it.)