Jun 29, 2007

Sounding toll for country's Bells

Band rings July 4th holiday in with a twang

By Bernadette Harris / Daily News Staff Writer

Dennis Gast was jaded.

After being the lead singer of Street Lyfe, a local hair band plagued by internal battles that reached a modicum of success during the mid-1980s, he stepped away from music.

Exchanging the squabbles and the egos for a career outside of performing, he got caught up paying the bills.

"I got married, eventually had kids and threw myself into the family thing," said Gast, who grew up in San Mateo.

When he took his school-aged daughters to a Rascal Flatts concert a couple of years ago, Gast "got that itch again."

He was 41, and his wife expected that he was looking for a weekend gig, something to fool around with. But when Gast met the Bell Brothers through a Craigslist post, he knew that they were made for more. As Gast describes the brothers, they are "no weekend warriors."

Nearly a year to the day after that fateful Rascal Flatts show reignited his love of music, Gast was on stage with the Bell Brothers opening for the country music stars.

Gast takes a backseat as the drummer in the Bell Brothers, a band he describes as country rock. "We're not country," he says. "We're country like you hear on the radio. We can rock the house with the best of them."

Texas transplants Scott Bell and Russ Bell may have moved to the Bay area 25 years ago, but the boys never lost their love of country music. With a mother who still performs in choirs at Stanford University and a father that who played guitar in a gospel group back in Texas, the household was anchored in music, a passion that stayed with the brothers while they were growing up.

After leaving the Bay Area for a stint, the Bell brothers eventually moved back and began writing music together. Texas had never really left them, and a distinct country sound found its way into their tunes: "countrified is what we called it," Scott said. They chose to embrace the genre.

The Bell brothers showcased their songs to label executives in Nashville a few years ago, in hopes of shopping the songs to other artists to perform, but the executives were always intrigued by the voice on their own demos. This encouraged the two to seriously pursue music, which they have been doing for a year and a half as the Bell Brothers.

Though living in Nashville might make things easier for the band, the Bells still make their home in the Bay Area. A total move to the mecca of country music is not an option. "We really want to stay married," Bell said, chuckling.

The band's core members, who have worked together in this current incarnation for six months, all have day jobs. Fiddle player Ben Roberts, of San Francisco, is a teacher at a middle school. Concord resident Todd Corletto, who plays bass, is a Mac computer consultant. Russ Bell, who resides in Pleasonton, is a technical engineer at Clorox. Lead guitarist Stuart Law, the only member of the band younger than 30, attends San Francisco State University. Scott Bell just resigned from his job as headmaster at a local private school and shoes horses, while Gast works at Branders.com - which has nothing to do with cattle, but with maketing.

Though unsigned artists, the Bell Brothers have still accomplished much in a short time. Their singles are in regular rotation on country stations 95.3 and 95.7 F.M. The band performs at larger venues and has played with big acts, such as the legendary Roy Clark and Heartland, and will open for Montgomery Gentry in August.

Sometimes the band hears that the Bay Area isn't the place to nurture a band with its roots in country.

"I hear, 'You guys are never getting anywhere without going to Nashville," Gast said. "We keep defying people by getting more and more shows - and getting bigger."