For me, HitnRun began in 1989 when I returned from a year of living in Los Angeles while I attended the Musicians Institute (GIT). I came back to Scranton PA with the vision of building a band that would be worthy of taking on the LA music scene, but would operate on the East Coast. Although Scranton PA wasn't exactly a hot bed of hard rock talent, I knew a few area musicians that would be up for the task of putting this kind of band together, among them was my brother Beckett who, despite being just 16, had become a solid rock drummer.
Beckett and I soon partnered with guitarist Mark Sutorka, who would go on to be with the band almost until its demise. Along with singer Michael Weiland and bassist Bob Grogan, we formed the original version of HitnRun. Although this line-up had every intention of being an original band, we succumbed to the pressures of the local music scene and focused primarily on learning cover songs. That's not to say that we didn't write several originals though. In fact, the track Forever, which is featured on our debut record was written during this time by myself and Michael.
After a year of steady rehearsals and gigs, the band came apart at the seams. Bob had to move away to finish his college degree, Michael was struggling with his voice, which caused some frustration for the entire group, and I wound up getting an interesting opportunity to join a band in Philadelphia that I decided to pursue.
My time in Philly would prove short lived, however, and I soon returned to Scranton to reassemble HitnRun with Beck and Mark. Soon we had recruited a new bassist in Dan Whitman and decided to give Michael another go at the microphone. This time there would be no cover songs. We decided to strictly focus on writing originals. Although it seemed promising at the start, the partnership with Michael went south once again, and our new line-up soon found itself without a singer.
Despite this setback, we remained focused and determined, and continued writing new material as we searched for a vocalist. After about 4 months of this, we started to get concerned. The response to our search was minimal. It seemed like there was no one out there. Fortunately, the universe seems to respond when you just continue putting one foot in front of the other. Through a stroke of good fortune, our flyer fell into the hands of a talented vocalist from a band in New Jersey who just happened to be looking for a change.
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