Andy Prieboy

A self taught musician and songwriter, Andy Prieboy was born in California but raised in the industrial wasteland of Northwesten Indiana. He joined his first band at 14. But it was not until the late seventies, when he found himself a part of San Francisco's then burgeoning Punk Scene, that he began to focus his abilities fronting and writing for Eye Protection, a band whose music, in the forgivable exuberance of youth, Prieboy once described as "neo-classical anti-broadway urban rock 'n 'roll." Though failing to capture the public's imagination, this tag aptly described the cultural car wreck of the band's musical intent and product. Eventually heroin, poverty, and obscurity conspired with one band member's religious conversion causing the band to die, fatally crushed under the weight of it's motto. It was at this point that an L.A. production company whisked Andy away to Hollywood where he was to be groomed to "become a star." Sadly, this grooming was not as thorough as it might have been, had this estimable organization produced something other than fancy receipts to mask "the producer's" Wal Mart Sized drug habit. And so, when the Feds moved in, Andy was unceremoniously dumped in to the sky's-the-limit world of rock-musicians-reduced to working retail . Oddly enough, it was here, In the course of socializing with other penniless rockin' retailers ,that a serendipitous meeting occurred with the members of the newly Stan Ridgeway-less, Wall of Voodoo. Facing a dubious, often scathing press, Andy went on to tour the world and record three albums with the band for the rest of that decade. During this period, Voodoo scored a hit in Australia with The Far Side of Crazy, a Prieboy composed love song based on the poems of John Hinkley Jr. to Jodie Foster. Two more albums followed. By the early nineties, when the members of Wall of Voodoo got drunk and wandered away, Prieboy began to pursue work as a solo artist. Upon My Wicked Son, "his acclaimed debut album" was released in l991. It featured the haunting AIDS related ballad,Tomorrow Wendy, which was covered by LA's Concrete Blonde on their hit record, Bloodletting .*" A second cut, Loving the Highwayman , was later covered by Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt on ther Western Wall Collaboration. In the fullness of time, Prieboy released two other records Montezuma Was a Man of Faith and 1995's Sins of Our Fathers. It was on the latter that a song called Psycho Ex first appeared. Says Prieboy, "I composed this song at the end of a very messy relationship. Those too often ignored post-breakup themes of rage, regret, and revenge posessesed an obscene grandioisty that, it seemed to me, deserved nothing less than an operatic setting. In a round about way, this proved to be turning point for me creatively, leading to both a musical and now ,a decade later, this novel." That same year, during a musical residency at a Los Angeles night club, Andy continued to hone this formal, ornate nineteenth century voice which he describes as "Gilbert and Hooligan," And thus was his musical comedy "White Trash Wins Lotto" born. Loosely centering on the career rise of W. Axl Rose , the piece evolved in to a eviscerating commentary of the music business. Prieboy is presently preparing for a 2005 production of White Trash WIns Lotto. While continuing to compose, record, and perform he is also busy at work on another musical as well as his next novel, tentatively titled Every Age Must Have It's Mozart based on his early years as a teenage front man for a Black Sabbath cover band in the Midwest in the early 70s. * Concrete Blonde's dynamic Johnette Napolitano appears with Prieboy on this recording from Upon My WIcked Son. Her version was released a year later on Bloodletting.