MAGNATAR

From a very early age Glenn was instilled with a love for and a fascination with music. He remembers as a little boy watching his uncle and friends getting together with their guitars and just being mesmerized by the amazing sounds they could make together. He was just simply “blown away” by watching and listening to people making music on instruments.   

Even as this infatuation with music had been firmly implanted in Glenns’ soul, it was a love of sports that would take him through his youth and into his twenties. The defining moment that would impact and influence Glenn in a way he could not have imagined, occurred on a chilly winter night in 1971. 

Back in those days, Stetson University used to sponsor concerts in the middle of fraternity row in a giant sinkhole called “The Pit”. On this night a little known group called YES was performing. The band had just released what would become their breakout album “Fragile” two weeks earlier. What Glenn saw and heard that night profoundly affected and transformed him from that day forward. Unknown to each other, there were also a couple of other people in the crowd that night that shared in that experience, Joey Costa and Dave Norton. Little did they each know that night how their futures would intersect many years down the road. 

After that night, Glenn knew he wanted to be involved with music and began to play the guitar. He worked hard to learn his instrument and over time he developed into a fairly good rhythm player. 

The next key event in Glenn’s musical journey occurred one night while on a camping trip with some friends. They were all just a bunch of amateur players that liked to jam just for fun. While most were playing guitars, one of the guys was playing a mandolin. Glenn was intrigued by the look and sound of this little string instrument and asked if he could try it out. Much to his surprise, he discovered a very unusual yet “natural” feel about it and it really got him thinking about the possibilities. It also triggered a long forgotten memory, that somewhere buried deep in a closet at his parents house, was an old mandolin that one of his uncles had left many years earlier. 

When he got home from the camping trip he immediately dug around the closet and found the 1967 Harmony mandolin that had been in there probably thirty years.  He put new strings on that thing and began to play it almost daily just for fun.  At about this same time Glenn was playing rhythm guitar in a Classic rock cover band called CATFOOD, and it did not take long for a “just for fun” mandolin thing to become the key to Glenn finding his true musical calling. Learning the mandolin so naturally and so quickly came as a completely unexpected but very pleasant surprise to both Glenn and his CATFOOD band mates. This surprise development around the mandolin set in motion the future path to this day for Glenn. 

In addition to just being able to play the mandolin in his very unique and personal style, it also served to unlock Glenn’s creative side. He began composing instrumental songs that were very progressive in nature and his ideas were coming one after the other at an almost frantic pace. 

However, there was still one more development that playing the Mandolin surfaced for Glenn. After playing and composing song after song almost non-stop for about a year, he surmised that his ability to adapt so quickly to the mandolin for both playing and creating music so rapidly had something to do with the “dyslexic” condition that he had struggled with for most of his life. It was as if the mandolin for whatever reason helped decode the dyslexic backwards scramble that had frustrated him from an early age. After learning on guitar, where the first four strings are EADG, the strings on the mandolin are GDAE, exactly backwards, so he gives his dyslexic condition the credit for his musical growth and creativity. 

Having truly found his passion with the mandolin and with the creative juices pouring out, the need for a musical outlet that could bring life to his original compositions was the natural next step. Glenn moved on from CATFOOD and co-founded the first iteration of BUCKETS AND STRINGS, along with his close friend and bass player, Joey Costa. 

This first original Buckets & Strings endeavor eventually morphed into JEBRA"S PARADISE for a short period of time, which in turn eventually transitioned to the current lineup of MAGNATAR. Over the last 10 years or so the band continued to evolve both in style and personnel, and they have been featured at a number of popular central Florida events. 

Glenn doesn’t listen to very much of today's commercial music, but he still loves most all music in some way.  He also has no formal music or music theory training, but credits his musical mentor, Steve Hewing from CATFOOD, for helping him develop his passion and philosophical approaches to rhythm, composing and playing music that guide his thought process every time he picks up his mandolin. 

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, ELP, Tommy Emmanuel, Jethro Tull. 

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Jerry started his music career at an early age. He and his brother Thom loved the BEATLES, and would sing as many of their songs as they could to polish their vocal abilities. Jerry was 14 years old when his love for the guitar began. He would sit for hours and copy guitar riffs off the BEATLE albums, and any other good guitar riffs he could.  His first band, called The Squires, was with his brother and some of the neighborhood kids in DeLand. 

When Jerry entered 7th grade he started noticing other musicians from his class that he thought were very good. Some of those musicians were Dave Norton, and David Wehrfritz. Jerry and his brother continued on their musical journey, and played with many of the great musicians that grew up in DeLand and the surrounding area.  

When Jerry entered 10th grade, he became friends with a bass player who was starting gain attention in the local scene by the name of Joey Costa. Joey was performing in another band at the time, but he and Jerry became very good friends and laid the foundation for the future. Also along a similar parallel path, Dave was playing in a very popular band called the YAK. Jerry was always impressed with Dave's musicianship, but it would not be until after high school that their paths would cross. 

Back in these early days. all the musicians were very familiar with each other, and collaborative combinations formed and dissolved on a regular basis. But one of those collaborations was about to rise above the others when Jerry got together with his brother Thom, Joey Costa, and another childhood friend, Bill Finney on drums, and played under the name HEMBY. They were starting to make a name for themselves and to round out the lineup a little bit later, Dave was recruited to join. This is the group that began to move away from cover songs to write original music that over time, would start the Prog movement that blossomed out of DeLand. 

Unfortunately, like so many before it, this group split up, and for a period of time, everyone was sort of wandering around in the desert, so to speak. But the foundation and shift to writing original music with this group of friends had been established. It was during this in between time, that Jerry first heard YES'S version of "Every Little Thing", and at that moment he fell in love with progressive music. Peter Banks and Steve Howe would become a great influence on Jerry’s musical creativity. And as the stars sometimes align, independently but in parallel, Dave and Joey were likewise discovering and being forever influenced by this new direction in music inspired by the new prob movement with YES at the forefront.

At this time, Jerry's brother Thom was traveling on the road with his own project, which left Jerry with no one to work with in the hometown area. And then that fate thing found its way back in as Jerry met up with Dave, who had just purchased a Mini Moog synth, and from that point, the music creativity could not stop. This reunion also brought back Joey and Bill to form the core, and  Thom a bit later to complete the group.

As this fortuitous reunion was starting to take shape, the idea of adding a second guitarist and drummer came into to play. This led to the addition of adding the Hoag brothers, Brad on guitar and Russ on drums, to the band. The band was called Hot City. This was when the early writing roots of Hemby then began to blend and blossom into something more sophisticated. In a very short time frame, Jerry and David’s writing ability landed the band a recording contract with London Records, and the band recorded their first single at Criterion Studios in Miami.

During this period, things were happening fast and furious which included a two night concert appearance with Alice Cooper at Pirates World in Ft. Lauderdale. But once again as before, keeping a band of young and immature musicians together in those days was difficult, and unfortunately for us, we parted ways just before a national tour date was taking shape. Even after these difficult events, we always remained friends. 

After a period of time, the core of Jerry, Dave, Joey and Bill eventually found their way back to each other, to start yet another new project. Jerry's brother Thom, after a period of time, would also find his way back to this group of childhood friends. This is the lineup that eventually became FANTASIA, which embarked on a furious period of writing prog songs so fast that they were just identified by a number. This period would be the pinnacle of original prog song writing by this group of friends.

However, as the band was driven to transition to playing popular cover music from the day to financially survive, Joey decided to leave the band, Digging deep into old relationships, the band  the band convinced an old friend and guitarist, David Wehrfritz, to switch to bass and join the band. This lineup went on for a few years to successfully tour the southeast club circuit. unfortuantely, David "Fritz" Werhfritz, was killed in a car accident, which resulted in the break up of the band, and Jerry ended up moving back to DeLand. 

Jerry continued to perform in and around the DeLand area in a variety of local groups over the years, most recently as the lead guitarist for PENTA, a classic rock cover band, but always maintained his relationships with the key musicians still in the area.  As fate would have it, one day he received a call from his old friend Glenn Smith, who had been playing with Joey Costa and Dave Norton in MAGNATAR who had released their first album called Parallel Worlds. Jerry had heard the album and was very impressed with their unique sound, so it really was no surprise that Glenn and Jerry began having serious discussions on a writing collaboration for MAGNATAR'S second CD when Glenn became ill and passed away. 

The new MAGNATAR, will always remain committed to keeping Glenns' musical influence and spirit alive, as Jerry will handle the mandolin duties on many of the old MAGNATAR material. An evolution is also inevitable which will bring whole new progressive sound to the band as Jerry Hemby and Ryan Rivas intertwine their guitar virtuosity with Reed Hayes, David Norton, and Joey Costa’s impeccable musicianship. 

MUSICAL INFLUENCES: The Beatles, YES, 

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Joey’s initial interest in playing music, like so many others of that era, was inspired by the British invasion, and specifically the Beatles. He joined his first band in Ohio at age 15 called the LYNX, and picked the bass guitar because that was what the band needed to round out their lineup, and Joey has never looked back on that decision. His style was heavily influenced in those early days by the sound of Paul McCartneys’ Hofner bass lines.  

It wasn’t long after that first foray into music that Joeys’ family moved to Florida in 1968. Over the next several years Joey played in a procession of different bands. Memorable among them was THE CAUSE, IMPULSE and IVORY. It was the next band however that would shape Joeys’ musical path for several years.  

In 1970 Joey teamed up with Thom and Jerry Hemby in INFERNO. INFERNO eventually morphed into “HEMBY” when drummer Bill Finney, who also played in IVORY, joined the group. It was during this time that the band began to shift their focus from playing covers to writing their own original music, and the relationship with Keyboardist Dave Norton first emerged.  

There were a number of ebbs and flows during this period, but the next key event occurred when Joey and Dave made contact with another set of brothers, Brad and Russ Hoag who living in the panhandle at that time. This meeting proved to be very eventful on two different levels. First, the Hoag brothers were convinced to move to DeLand to create a new group with 2 drummers and 2 lead guitarists, effectively borrowing a page out of the Allman Brothers Band at the time.  

The other key event from that meeting however, would have a profound and long lasting effect on Joey and his idea of what a bass guitarist could be. While visiting with the Hoag brothers, they put on an album that blew Joeys’ mind. It was the second album by a band from England called YES, entitled “Time and a Word”. From that moment forward, Joeys’ idea of how to play the bass and how he wanted it to sound was forged and forever ever influenced by the ground breaking bass style of Chris Squire and his Rickenbacker.  

So the Hoag brothers teamed up with the Hemby brothers along with Joey, Dave and Bill. They were initially called CANYON for a short time, but Brad came up with the name HOT CITY, which was quickly adopted by the group. Much happened in a short period of time during this phase that included a record deal with Flamingo Music and a single released on London Records, along with a 2 night gig opening for ALICE COOPER. Unfortunately due to typical youth immaturity, the band broke up just as they were about to go on tour.  

After a period of time the core of the group absent the Hoag brothers re-united in 1973 as FANTASIA. The band then went on a furious binge of writing new original material. Over time however, the band drifted away from being all original and started playing covers in the club scene around the southeast. Along the way after tiring of the cover and club scene, Joey decided to leave the group to pursue other interests.  

It was in the late 70’s that in addition to playing bass, Joey’s interest also turned to sound reinforcement and recording and he built his own recording studio in downtown DeLand. In addition to recording the groups he played in he also provided his services to other artists in the area and for a period of time had a small but thriving venture.  

The next key musical endeavor for Joey came in 1980 when he joined the group MAMMOTH. They released their album recorded in Joeys’ studio in 1981. Over the next few years Joey also played with the band DRAMA, and in1985 formed a duo focusing exclusively on original music using midi and a drum machine called the SIGMUND EXPERIMENT. They released an album also recorded in Joeys’ studio called "Let Me Go".   

In 1988, Joey joined the group CAT FOOD, who he still plays with today and are now called FAKE NEWS.  CAT FOOD was the band that eventually led to the intersection of Joey and Glenn Smith who joined CAT FOOD in 1992. It was both the musical and personal relationship forged between Joey and Glenn over the next several years that became the core foundation for BUCKETS AND STRINGS in 2007.  

There would be many different members and iterations of BUCKETS AND STRINGS over the next few years, but the best was yet to come. The real turning point of the band from both a personnel and musical standpoint occurred when drummer Reed Hayes joined in 2010, followed by guitarist Ryan Rivas in 2013, and MAGNATAR was born. The final piece of the puzzle fell into place in 2016 when keyboardist Dave Norton reunited with Joey after almost 40 years since their time together in the early 70’s.  

Musical Influences: The Beatles, Yes, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, ELP, Dream Theater, Jethro Tull, Kansas, RUSH, Bach Chamber Music.

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Reed started playing drums at the age of 12 and quickly became a huge fan of Neil Peart of Rush, which naturally led him to playing with musicians of the same interest. As his skills rapidly developed, he eventually began touring with Rush tribute bands all over the southeast and northeast part of the country. 

When not touring, Reed also collaborated in original music and recording projects. Over time Reed had successfully established himself as an extremely talented and versatile drummer in the central Florida area. 

This led to many different types of group opportunities, playing every style of gig from top 40, wedding bands, special events, bars, theme parks and conventions. This broad diversity of work over the years supported Reeds’ growth as a professional drummer that included many different playing styles covering rock, jazz, country, and funk to Zydeco. 

Underscoring his accomplished drum style, skill and technique, Reed was one of 8 drummers to reach the National Semi-finals of the 2012 Roland VDrum Competition in Houston. Reed enjoys music of all types but his primary interest at this stage of his career is focused on original progressive rock. 

Musical Influences: Rush, Frank Zappa, The Beatles, Allan Holdsworth, Chick Corea, Return to Forever, Brand X, The Police, UK, King Crimson, Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater. 

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