Jesco Devilanse

So TB Monstrosty wrote me a bio. Let me know what ya think:

Andrew Winter was born July 15th, 1987 and grew up in Arizona. He started playing drums at the age of 9 and has been honing his razor sharp chops ever since. In his teens, his family relocated to West Virginia and it was there that he began an obsession with music and started really getting serious about playing drums. He played in various local punk and metal bands around the area, before landing the drum position in early 2004 for an outfit known as Southern Flame, who played a brutal southern style of metal comparable to Black Sabbath, Corrosion of Conformity, DOWN and Black Label Society. The band started meagerly enough, playing several covers at their first few shows, but soon they started writing their own material, and playing it out live. The response to Southern Flame in and around the southeast was favorable, and people often flocked to see the band in droves not only to hear their crushing music, but to see Andrew, who was all of 17 at the time, play to perfection the drum solo in the Led Zeppelin song "Moby Dick".

Soon after a buzz was created around Southern Flame, Andrew started attending Blitzkid shows in the area and became a huge fan of the band. Being a punk rock fan first and foremost, he quickly became frineds with the principle/founding members TB Monstrosity(guiars/vokills) and Argyle Goolsby(bass/vokills). Blitzkid was having trouble with their current drummer at the time, and sometimes Andrew was called upon to fill in, without any rehearsal, and nailed it every time, sometimes within a couple hours notice. By March of 2006, Andrew was growing weary of Southern Flame's direction and wanted to do something more along the lines of Blitzkid, when his personal dream came true and the band asked him if he would want to try out due to the drum throne being vacant once again. He jumped at the chance, and played his first official Blitzkid rehearsal in mid March (learning 32 songs in ONE evening) and then his first official Blitzkid live show on March 24th, 2006.

The Blitzkid guys saw what they had been wanting in a drummer ever since they'd became a band in Andrew, someone who was easy to get along with, someone who was dedicated (He quit his job working as a car audio installer to go on his first tour with Blitzkid in April 2006) and clearly, someone who cared about playing the drums and the effort that goes into being a tight and technically proficient musician. Due to Blitzkid being a horror influenced band having stage monikers and utilizing such theatrics as zombie make-up, fake blood and fangs, they dubbed Andrew "Jesco Devilanse" which is a combination of two names: the patriarchal mean spirited father of the Hatfield clan, Devilanse Hatfield, and what many call "the last of the mountain dancers" documentary film star, Jesco White (Who himself has appeared on the sitcom ROSEANNE and in the video for the Beck song "Loser").

Since Andrew has joined the band, Blitzkid toured Europe in June 2006 and it was one of their most successful runs overseas yet, that saw them play to the biggest audience they had ever performed for in Leipzig's WGT (WORLD GOTH TREFFEN) Festival. After returning home, they embarked on a U.S. tour a mere two weeks later that saw them play 58 shows between June 29th and Sept 3rd, culminating in their headlining appearance at the world renoun DROP DEAD FESTIVAL (in it's fourth year) in New York City. In October, Blitzkid will do another European tour along with CA's the Rezurex on what has been called "THE HELL NIGHTS TOUR" for one month that will see them playing Finland, Hungary, Holland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria in support of their recently released fifth full length album, FIVE CELLARS BELOW that came out August 25th, 2006.

Blitzkid have been amongst the underground punk scene since early 1997 and in that time have released five full length albums, toured all over the U.S. and Europe and work side by side with two independent labels, one being Horror High out of Phoenix and the other being Germany's Fiend Force Records. They are sponsored by Level 27 Clothing, Hotpicks, Coffin Case and Merchmonster. Blitzkid has appeared in such international magazines as Rue Morgue, OX, Zillo, Sonic Reducer, Terrorizer, Metal Maniacs, Varla, and Virus to name a few. They are distributed worldwide via Cargo Music and work with Weird World Entertainment(Mad Sin, The US Bombs, Deadline) and Die In Style for all of their overseas booking. In the time they have been together as a band, they have shared the stage with such notable acts as The Misfits, Agent Orange, The Kings of Nothin', The Queers, Rock City Morgue, Trashlight Vision, Groovie Ghoulies, The Independents, Cinema Strange, Michale Graves, X-Ward, Bella Morte, Mister Monster, Retching Red, HR(of the Bad Brains)and the Undead.

Andrew "Jesco Devilanse" Winter is indeed a strong component of Blitzkid's sound. With his precise, fast and technical yet never overtly flashy drumming style, he is the backbone of the band's "Bad Religion meets the Misfits" hard hitting sonics. Andrew is a truely diverse player, and can handle punk rock, metal, jazz, alternative and even goth and ska (which sometimes happens within the space of one Blitzkid song). With ten years of experience under his belt and a willingness to learn new techniques and excercises, his cadence timekeeping and swing can only get better as time goes on. He cites as his influences such greats as Neil Peart, Buddy Rich, Travis Barker, Jojo Mayer, Chris Adler, Dennis Chambers and Gene Krupa. He has a determined attitude to make music his life's work and will stop at nothing to achieve those goals. He is permanently committed to growing as a musician and as a player. Andrew is currently endorsed by C+C Custom Drums and Coffin Case. Andrew Winter will be a name to watch as a drummer in the underground music scene for years to come.....

Advertisement