Supermonkey

Christian Groblewski moved to Pittsburgh in 1995 when he got a job selling artwork out of his car. The owner of the company back in San Francisco told Christian he’d give him the Pittsburgh office after about a year of selling more art than everyone else. Christian agreed to run the business on one condition, as long as he can jam in the warehouse with his band (that didn’t exist yet) after work. The deal was done. When trying out bass players, Christian was introduced to Johnny Razzo through one of his employees Dave Hoffer. They clicked right away as they started jamming. “I remember looking at Johnny as we were jamming a song I had written “West Philly” and we both just smiled at each other because we knew right away it was great chemistry and it just sounded right.” For whatever reason, that 1st jam was the last jam for about 8 years. Fast forward about 8-9 years. Christian later around 2002-2003, started what was to become SuperMonkey with some other local musicians that all quit the band after about a year. As he always does, Christian continued to move forward and recruit the best players he can. As fate would have it, Christian was working on some SuperMonkey songs at Soundscape studios sometime around 2004-2005 with the owner Doug Kasper. “When I walked in the control room Razzo was sitting there playing guitar. The 1st words out of my mouth were “Johnny Razzo!” The 1st words out of Johnny’s mouth were “Chris Groblewski!” And we’ve been jamming together ever since.”” As it would turn out, Johnny Razzo was Doug Kaspers oldest friend. Christian and Johnny agreed that working together as a team, they both believed they could put together a great rock band. Through a couple mutual friends Jimmy and Shon, Christian, Johnny, and Domenic Fusca were introduced at a party. “Dom and I kind of knew of each other, but never really hung out on a personal level. I was at one of our friend Jimmy’s many Sunday Funday’s as he called them at his house for the Steelers game. Domenic said to Christian at one of those parties “hey man, if you ever need another guitar player, let me know, I’m looking to get into something and have some fun.” SuperMonkey was currently seeking a lead guitarist, and after jamming with Christian and Razzo, the 3 of them knew it was a good fit. Domenic's lead guitar skills were exactly what SuperMonkey needed. Plus they could practice at Dom’s house! The next step was to find the right drummer. “That took another couple of years. We played out with various session players and friends” Christian says. While working at 105.9 The X, Christian became friends with Mike Sill who also worked there. Mike has played drums for several successful local bands over the years and is definitely one of the best drummers in Pittsburgh. “We put together this big show “Monster Mash” back in 2006 that Mike’s band opened the show. “I remember looking at Razzo and saying “that guy right there sounds great, we should get him to play drums for us” Christian says. Christian and Mike became friends rather than band mates over the next couple of years of working together at different jobs and after about 2 years of consistently asking Mike to come up and jam, Mike finally agreed to check it out and jam with Christian, Razzo, and Domenic. After a few jam sessions in Dom’s basement, they booked time at Soundscape Studios to cut some new SuperMonkey songs in February 2009. “We wanted to get some backup singers to fill out the sound on the vocals for the record, but trying to find reliable backup singers in Pittsburgh is like trying to find a Cleveland Browns fan in Pittsburgh. It’s close to impossible. So I put out an ad on MySpace to see it anyone would be interested. Jess was the 1st one to get back to me.” As it would turn out Jess Levo was a great fit and her voice was a great match for SuperMonkey. Website: SuperMonkey CDBaby: SuperMonkey Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.