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| LINKS | NEWS | CONTACT | RIDER | E PRESS KIT | VIDEO | ORCHESTRA | (SEP 10, 2010) THE WORLD LOST ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS TODAY. I just found out that one of my oldest, dearest friends died today... Stevie "Surf" Dromensk. Steve was the reason that Jimi Rush, 'Krazy' Jim Shippey, and I (Don Zirilli) became professional musicians. And even though Jimi and I are the only originals left in Papa Doo Run Run, we're all still the best of friends.
You see it was Steve's idea to start a band back in 1965. Steve and I had just graduated from Cupertino High School, and were attending San Jose State College. Shippey and Rush (Steve's next door neighbor) were still students at Cupertino HS. We were all naive enough that we actually believed him when he said "We can do this!" Who knew that Steve had such great vision. He was right. We did it. We practiced, and practiced, and played as many places as would hire us, and we gathered a pretty huge following, first as "The Zu", then
"Goodie 2 Shoes", and finally as "Papa Doo Run Run". We made a name for ourselves. It was Steve who came up with the idea of changing our act from Top 40 to Surf Music back in 1971. It was Steve who forged our relationship with Jan & Dean that led to 5 nationwide tours with the celebrated duo. It was Steve who brought the comic relief to our stage at Disneyland that kept us working there for 15 years. And it was Steve's magical voice that would have you believe that you were hearing Brian Wilson, Jim Morrison, Eric Burdon, John Forgerty and a dozen other signature voices (click here to hear Steve singing "Proud Mary" with us at a 2004 concert in Santa Cruz). Steve's stage antics, winning personality, and versatility truly set him apart from the throng. Steve left Papa Doo in the early '90's because our tour schedule of 150+ dates a year was eating away at the quality time he could spend with his wife, Denyse, and his 2 little girls, Geneve, and Alex. A truly noble reason for leaving. But to keep his musical chops up, Steve put together a duo with his friend Dave Kibler. They called themselves "The Soundbytes" and became a pretty popular act performing in and around the SF Bay area. When Steve's wife, Denyse, called me today to tell me that Steve had died from a massive heart attack, I couldn't believe it. I was in shock. I STILL don't believe it. He was a picture of health - ate right, exercised, didn't drink or smoke. What the...? I had lunch with him just 3 days ago - he had a salad and lemonade! I had the cheese fries, and some gooey fried chicken thing. Sometimes life is so unfair. Steve's outlook on life was always positive and happy, and he had an intuitive knack for finding creative solutions to life's little problems. If it weren't for Steve, Jimi and I would most likely not have taken the musical path that we took, and most certainly we'd be living totally different lives than we live today. Thank you, Steve. I owe you, man. - Don Zirilli
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