GET BIG founding members, Chris Ambrosino and Kelly West, met in a music store in 1994. Exchanging phone numbers and a handshake, they agreed to get together soon and rehearse. Within months, they had become the house band for "Sonny's," a local beer parlor in Virginia Beach. Little did frontman, Ambrosino and drummer, West know that six years later, they would still be GETTING BIG.
Over the years, some of the faces of the band have changed, each contributing their own flavor to the group's style. In 1996, Stevie Donatone brought his lead guitar riffs and love of the blues to the band's make-up. A year later, he was followed by Tidewater native, Aaron Barlow, who bangs out solid and spirited bass lines, adding to West's rhythmic backbone. In the fall of 1999, the cool and funky sax tones of Kenny Shields sealed the band's musical personality. Keeping everything in check is soundman, Kevin Rudick, whose trained ear fine-tunes the band's BIG sound.
GET BIG's repertoire consists of new and classic rock, an interesting mix of upbeat favorites and original songs, sure to keep a crowded dance floor. This band's driving performance offers something for everyone.
The venues of GET BIG gigs are as diverse and impressive as their song list. GET BIG has shared the stage with showstoppers like Mick Taylor, Derek Trucks, and Kenny Neal. Benefit concerts for the American Cancer Society and St. Mary's Infant Home highlight this resume. Pubs from Maryland to the Outer Banks have grooved to the BIG beat, but perhaps most notably, GET BIG rocks the Greater Hampton-Roads area every weekend and then some.
Earlier this year, GET BIG members spent studio time perfecting their own original signature sound, where the songwriting talents of Ambrosino meshed with the rich flair of the BIG musical fabric. Their new CD, "Averytown," is a pleasing mix of lyric and music that is sure to satisfy the listener.
So what's the BIG secret? Ambrosino remarks, "GET BIG members love to play. We like to give the crowd a good time." Shouldn't that be a BIG time??
Written by Karen C. Shields
Harper, John. "Get Big lives up to its label as one of the best around." The Coast. September 14, 2001, p.27, 33.
On "Averytown," the debut album by Virginia Beach's Get Big, the music sounds like a great, lost, mid-'70s Van Morrison record.
Get Big, known for six years as one of the area's best cover bands, turns out to be a first-rate folk-rock group, not unlike Counting Crows.
Moody and stylish, the songs are powered by a directness of guitars, bass and drums, accented by some of the sweetest saxophone this side of Asbury Park and the wonderfully warm Hammond B-3 work of guest musician Michael Musgrove, who recently joined the band full time.
"We're totally happy with the way it turned out," said Chris Ambrosino, the group's distinctive lead singer and main songwriter. "It's something we worked on for seven months and thought about for years."
Rounding out the band's line-up are Kelly West (drums, percussion), Steve Donatone (guitar, vocals), Aaron Barlow (bass, vocals), and Kenny Shields (saxophones).
The album kicks off with its title song, a mid-tempo rocker about a place where we all live: everytown, as Ambrosino describes it. From there it traverses nine short stories of varying degrees of seriousness.
"Trail Mix" is a poppy, autobiographical tune about Ambrosino's first date. "Hey Man" is about a friend from New York, and "Today" has the upbeat singer/songwriter waxing poetic about procrastination and growing up.
The other songs range from good to excellent, including "Sensible Shoes," which benefits mightily from Shields' baritone sax work and has the singer pleading for his woman to "get sensible shoes to walk on my heart."
"That was my angst for the album," Ambrosino said. "I try to write songs that others can relate to."
Ambrosino says the album is selling well, and the band's agent plans to shop it around to major labels after the first of the year. But he's quick to say that Get Big is not necessarily looking to be the next big thing.
"I'd be happy to sell all the copies we pressed so we can record another one."
Get Big, playing at Kelly's in Nags Head, now lives in a musical universe where its original songs nestle with those of The Beatles, Counting Crows, Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones, Kool and the Gang, U2, Cracker and the others the band has covered for years.
"We don't mind playing cover songs," Ambrosino said. "But we'll play all the songs on the album. It's just not that it's force-feeding our material."
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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