Lunatic's Serenade
You wanted the best,
So you got the best...
Presenting Wicked Garden
Wicked Garden is a cover band from fabulous Las Vegas, doing the songs you love from the 90’s and playing them with no tracks, no wigs, and no apologies. Known as a band that club owners and other bands hate because they don’t play originals, but W.G. don’t care! They play what they love and they play it loud! The club owners should be thanking the boys in Wicked Garden for upping the attendance, drink sales and loads of fun. I guess that’s why the readers of the Las Vegas Weekly Magazine voted Wicked Garden “Las Vegas’ Best Cover Band”!
At the show, you will be treated to the nifty sounds of Alice In Chains, Tool, Screaming Trees, Bush, and many others…and did I mention they play it loud?
Fronted by Dominick Muzio who also plays a mean guitar, Shawn Trojhan (founder) on lead guitar, Jason “The Beast” Dardano on drums and new dude, Troy Spriggs on bass. He replaced Jay Cee, the former guitar player who went on to form a tribute to Sammy Hagar called, “Three Lock Box”. (Shawn was on bass when Jay was in the band and now he’s on shred duty.)
I got to sit down with Dominick before they hit the stage at Count’s Vamp’d to get a little inside info.
HMS: So, Wicked Garden; the band everyone loves to hate. How did this all happen for you?
Dominick Muzio: How did they grow to hate us? (laughter) Well, Shawn actually started the band about five years ago and they played around with a completely different line up. It pretty much fell apart and he was trying to put it back together. I had just left the band I was in and I answered an ad on Craig’s List for a guitar player. He gave me a list of songs to listen to and it was all these grunge songs I grew up with and I was like, “Yeah, this is the kinda’ shit I wanna’ do”. So I went to the rehearsal and had another guy singing. At the end of rehearsal, I went to Shawn and said, “Hey, I dig what you’re doing here, but let me try singing next time”. He said he kinda’ wanted a front man, so I told him to just trust me. I went back the next week, sang the whole set and played all the guitar parts. Shawn said, “OK, this is what we’re doing now!” We started off as a three piece for about seven to eight months. Shortly thereafter Jay Cee had joined the band and that’s when it really took off and we started blowing up everywhere. Now, Jay Cee left the band about five months ago and we couldn’t find anyone to jell with. Troy was in Late Night Vice , so we knew he was a great singer and plays bass really well. So Shawn finally said he’d play guitar (he’s been playing guitar for years anyway). Now we have Troy on bass and it sounds great as far as I’m concerned.
HMS: Your influences are pretty much the songs you play. What are some of your other influences besides the bands you cover?
DM: I grew up loving Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones, to be honest with you. Those two were actually my favorite when I was growing up. I became half a metal head for about a year where I liked Anthrax and Megadeth. When I was playing in local bands around Ney York ,we were doing the tail end of the hard rock/heavy metal scene. Then all of a sudden Grunge blew up and that was the end of it.
HMS: So you kind of lost the flavor for heavy metal?
DM: Kinda, yeah. There’s occasions when I’ll hear it, like I still love W.A.S.P., Cinderella and RATT. They’re just not my go-to when I throw on my headphones. When the grunge thing took over, you know, that was it.
HMS: Speaking of Glam Rock and mid-80’s rock, you did a stint with London a while back. What’s the story behind that?
DM: Nadir D'Priest (Vocals for London) and I performed together a few times with (former guitarist of Faster Pussycat) Brent Muscat's All Stars. He called me and asked if I would be interested in playing London, and of course I jumped at the chance. We hit it off really well and did a great gig in LA and were looking forward to touring and recording but I had to take a day gig that would have interfered with that. Nadir understood completely and left the door open to me playing with them in the future, but he has to do what's best with for the band. It was an honor to be asked and I'm very proud of it, even if it was for a short time.
HMS: Like you guys, the grunge scene hit me first with Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden and Alice In Chains. Years later (after the death of frontman Andrew Wood of MLB) someone asked if I’ve heard of Pearl Jam and I said, “no”. They said if I dig Mother Love Bone, I would dig them.
(Shawn Trojhan joined in the conversation at this point.)
Shawn Trojhan: I bought Alice In Chains’ Facelift on cassette in 1990. I saw the video for “Man In The Box” on Mtv, and I was like, “Wait a minute, there’s something different about this. At first, no one was listening to it, and then Everybody was listening to it. You know, that album is so Metal!
HMS: With Alice IN Chains, not only does it have a grunge sound, it also has a Black Sabbath feel, and not like the typical sound like Mudhoney - but it’s just harsh.
ST: Yeah, they just got lumped into the grunge scene just being from Seattle. I don’t think the location had anything to do with what they were doing. You know, it was new where they were from and MTV just chucks them in with all those other guys just to sell the shit out of it.
DM: It was like I was saying before, you know, everything happened so quick. I was living in New York at the time and I was in what was considered a “hard rock/metal band and literally over-night, like I went out on a Friday night with spandex and hairspray, then went to the same club on Saturday night I had on ripped jeans and a flannel. You know, it was just like that quick. Grunge just destroyed that type of music. At the time I was in a band called Lynx. We were constantly fighting with the small record label we were on. They were thinking we weren’t pretty enough. Then grunge came around and they said, “Hey, you guys are ugly….Perfect!”
ST: Just say you’re from Seattle.
DM: Dude, it was talked about, trust me.
ST: Don’t go in the sun, no kind of tan…
HMS: Walk around and hate yourself.
(Laughter)
“We come in, we blow the place up (we usually pack the place), we break their alcohol sales for the night, and then they never call us back.”
HMS: Are you guys going to hit all the clubs?
ST: We hit all the clubs. It’s about hittin’ them again!
DM: It’s funny…we’re the band the club takes a shot on. We come in, we blow the place up (we usually pack the place), we break their alcohol sales for the night, and then they never call us back; which is why I say we’re the band people love to hate.
ST: We’re the “anti-band”.
DM: Yeah, we’re the anti-band! And I think it’s because we’re doing something that’s just different and they don’t know how to wrap their heads around it; yet. But they’re gonna’ get there at some point, because all the other bands in Vegas that have been known to do the 80’s metal have stronger sets. I like to think we had something to do with that. A lot of the bands that we know and we respect and we like have come to see us and said, “Oh, shit, that stuff could work!”
HMS: I have to say, I see you guys as giants in the music business, it makes me a bit nervous.
DM: Haha, yeah, we’re huge! We can’t even walk the streets in Belgium. But you know it’s funny you said that because we hang out with guys that we grew up liking and worshiping, and they are just as down to earth as everybody else. It’s guys that never did anything that piss us off! It’s the guys that never sold a record in their lives and they act like assholes to us. We’re like, “what did we ever do to you?” We go on stage with Brent (Muscat), Phil Lewis (L.A. Guns), guys that have sold millions of records and they are just cool as shit to us. But we go out some nights and we’ll play and there’s those guys who just cop an attitude. What the hell have you ever done? Ya know.
ST: Just tell ‘em to stay in their lane and pass ‘em by.
HMS: And what I hear and see about you guys. After your shows, you’re always out there greeting people, saying hello; not like some of the other cats I’ve seen who just wanna’ hang in the V.I.P. booth all the time or keep to themselves or hang out with those that are allowed back there.
DM: We’re like the people that are coming to see us, to hear us. We come off stage and it’s not like we jump into a Ferrari and drive to a mansion. I go back to a f#*n’ condo and get off work at five in the morning!
(A couple of friends walked in the room and right away Dominick and Shawn greet them with hugs and handshakes)
DM: And then there’s this guy!! You see, there’s a good example right there, I mean, they come in and we all hang out together and shit. Some guys, like you say, hang out in the V.I.P. section and they don’t come out for shit. It’s f*#n’ stupid! We have no opinion of ourselves. Self-esteem is overrated.
(One of the friends pipes in): Hey, I like that song!
HMS: The first time my brother heard that song he’s like, “dude, that’s you, man!”
DM: That song’s all of us!
Stephy (Dominick’s girlfriend): I don’t have low self-esteem; I have low self-esteem of everybody else.
DM: Yeah, it’s not that I have a bad outlook, it’s I have no outlook about stuff.
(Laughter….again)
HMS: Well, thanks for taking some time out for us.
DM: No, no, we appreciate it (with a wink). Don’t forget to mention we won “Best In Vegas”, haha.
HMS: Oh, that’s at the front of my notes!
DM: Alright, cool!. We appreciate guys like you and Z.Rocker (a local web mag in Vegas) coming out and supporting the local guys.
And there you have it; a look inside the labyrinth that is Wicked Garden. Check them out on Facebook or Youtube.
Tim Duran, HMS
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