Globe-trotting musician heads back to his high school

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/11/2010 (5813 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRENT Fitz’s career came full circle when he joined Slash’s band earlier this year.

The 40-year-old Winnipegger left his hometown in the mid-1990s to explore music opportunities in Los Angeles, which turned out to be paradise city for the multi-instrumentalist.

He scored some work drumming for ex-Guns N’ Roses member Gilby Clarke before hooking up with ex-Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick and future Mötley Crüe vocalist John Corabi to form the band Union. The group released three albums between 1998 and 2000 before splitting up.

Since then Fitz has gone on to sit behind the kit for the likes of Alice Cooper, Vince Neil and Theory of a Deadman, among others, and moved to Las Vegas.

This past winter he was doing some work with Kulick and Gene Simmons’ son Nick — documented on the reality show Gene Simmons Family Jewels — in Los Angeles when he received a call from Slash asking to meet.

“It was a nice random phone call. I had been recommended to him by several people. He said, “I’ve never met you before, but I want to have a chat about working together,'” Fitz says.

The meeting became an audition and eventually a full-time gig backing the ex-Guns N’ Roses guitar guru on his 2010 tour in support of his debut self-titled solo album.

The world tour stopped at European festivals where Fitz played in front of more than 150,000 people at Glastonbury, opened for AC/DC in Paris for a crowd of 100,000 and visited Russia, China and Australia.

“I can play multiple instruments and we had an incident in Russia where one of the musicians was sent home for emergency surgery so I played bass and my drum tech played drums. I had no rehearsals and played two sold-out shows in Russia,” he says.

That tour also stopped in Winnipeg for a sold out show at the Burton Cummings Theatre on Sept. 24, which Fitz says was one of the best gigs of the tour. Seriously.

“For me the highlights were some of those European festivals like Glastonbury and the Download Festival in the U.K., and going to Russia was really eye opening, and coming to my hometown and playing the Burt in front of the hometown crowd and my parents was really special. We had just been all around the world and then came to Winnipeg. There were a handful of shows that were really special and it wasn’t just because of me. The whole band felt it. The crowd was just amazing that night and we fed off it,” he says.

Winnipeggers will get another chance to see him up close and personal when he returns home this weekend to talk about his experiences during events on Sunday and Monday.

On Sunday he will appear at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain, as part of a Western Canadian tour for what is being billed as a drum clinic, but will also include a Q&A session where the public can learn and ask more about the ins and outs of the music industry. The All Access Music Series session starts at 7 p.m. and is $10.

The next day he will return to his former high school, John Taylor Collegiate, to talk and jam with students in the music program.

“The school has some really exciting programs now. When I was in high school it was jazz band and concert band, now they have a rock band where kids can play modern music. We’re going to play some Alice Cooper and Guns N’ Roses, it’s going to be great,” says Fitz, who graduated in 1988.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca