RCAF’s Spitfire Kings play combat rock

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This article was published 24/06/2019 (2382 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 35-member Royal Canadian Air Force Band based at 17 Wing in St. James ain’t your grandma’s marching band. 

While the band’s full complement plays engagements such as last year’s public duties at Buckingham Palace in London, U.K., it can also be broken down into smaller ensembles, encompassing a broad range of styles.

Just last week, a sextet of RCAF Band members who play classic rock released their first album as Spitfire Kings and celebrated with a show at the Pyramid Cabaret.

Titled Dead Reckoning, the Kings’ nine-track collection features tunes by Ozzy Osbourne, Led Zeppelin, the Guess Who, Michel Pagliaro and Iron Maiden, along with four original songs written by guitarist and bandleader Sgt. Mike Hall.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Hall was a member of Canadian hard rock/metal band Killer Dwarfs in the 1980s and ’90s.

After he left the Dwarfs, Hall played sessions, wrote music and taught guitar. In the early 2000s, he joined a retooled lineup of Helix and gigged with a reformed version of the Dwarfs before he learned of the Canadian Forces’ desire to broaden its musical programming.

Hall’s father was a 34-year military veteran, so the six-string warrior decided, at age 47, to audition and enlist. While he is employed as a full-time musician with the RCAF, Hall and all the other players went through the same basic training program as every other Forces member.

“I was the oldest guy in my graduating class by several decades,” Hall laughs. “Basic was just like it is in the movies but I made it through and I was definitely in better shape after 14 weeks in Quebec.”

Hall says the opportunity was too good pass up.

“What happened was that in 2009 the (Canadian Forces’) directorate of history and heritage wanted to expand the horizons of the musical program beyond the parade-ground marching bands and the jazz ensembles for dinners.

“They wanted this more modern capability — so it came down that they were going to hire vocalists, guitar players, bass players and piano players. This was the first time they were going to have a full-time, regular forces guitar player with all the bands, and they sent six of us to all the bands across the country,” he says, explaining that the Canadian army, navy and air force each boast two full bands.

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At 17 Wing, the RCAF Band can be broken down into a traditional parade band, a Dixieland group, a brass quintet, a jazz/pop troupe called Mach 4, the Jet Stream show band and the Spitfire Kings.

Hall is the Kings’ bandleader and is proud that the group has played gigs such as the Canada Games, the NHL’s Heritage Classic and the CFL’s Grey Cup. He says response to the camouflaged rockers has been uniformly enthusiastic.

“I want to capture that sense of music that might be played at a sporting event or a hockey crowd, and we’ve done those kinds of shows,” he says.

The Dead Reckoning album is a way for Hall and his bandmates — warrant officer Larry Björnson, Sgt. David Grenon (vocals, keyboards), Sgt. Jim Johnston (drums), Sgt. Richard Monzon (saxophone, vocals) and Sgt. Cindy Scott (vocals, percussion) — to capture what they’ve been doing.

“It’s a promotional item, a morale booster,” he says. “It’s fun, with some tunes I wrote on there, too.”

John Kendle
Managing editor, Free Press Community Review

John Kendle is managing editor of the Free Press Community Review. Email him at: john.kendle@freepress.mb.ca

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