Q: Introduce yourselves – name, instrument, secret shame, day job, odd/fun fact about you.
Mark Britton – drums
Day job: Marketing director
Secret shame: Shame! Shame! Shame!
Fun Fact: I can’t wrap – lyrics or presents – but I like both.
Favorite song we perform: “All These Things I’ve Done” by the Killers.
Frank Barry – bass
Day job: Supply chain manager
Secret shame: I once listened to and enjoyed “All About that Bass” by Meghan Trainor.
Fun fact: As a kid, I collected KISS memorabilia, and the first album I ever owned was “Kiss ALIVE II.”
Favorite song we perform: “Beverly Hills” by Weezer. It really makes people happy, which in turn makes me happy.
Michelle Barry – backing vocals, percussion
Day job: Public relations director
Secret shame: I know all the words to Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space.” And I’ll write your name.
Fun fact: I’m learning to sing opera.
Favorite song we perform: “Suffragette City” because David Bowie is the greatest, and I feel so sassy when Janelle and I sing, “Hey, man!”
Janelle Jette Douglas – backing vocals, percussion
Day job: Graphic designer
Secret shame: I can’t whistle with my lips. Only through my teeth! I’m pretty good at it, but not good enough to perform the whistle solo from “Patience” by Guns N’Roses (I’ve tried).
Fun fact: I grew up in a tiny town in Maine, famous also for being the town where Burt the Bee Man, co-founder of Burt’s Bees, was from. R.I.P., Burt Shavitz!
Favorite song we perform: I love gospel music. Those powerful three- and four-part harmonies give me goosebumps, so I love performing “What Makes a Good Man” by The Heavy. Michelle and I get a lot of sound from the two of us, and we get to tap into a Southern Gothic/British rock soul vibe….love it.
Eric Giribaldi – guitar
Day job: Musician/guitar teacher
Secret shame: I love the song “Crush” by David Archuleta.
Fun fact: I can solve a Rubik’s cube.
Favorite song we perform: “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, because people really love it, and it always goes over great.
Andrew Ross – lead vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion
Day job: Package delivery driver for UPS
Secret shame: I love Halloween gigs, because it’s an excuse to wear women’s clothing/costumes. It’s not a secret, however.
Fun fact: I have a pair of red underwear my wife hates, so I dance around in them.
Favorite song we perform: I think right now it’s “Dancing with Myself” by Billy Idol. I feed off and love the energy of the crowd, the musicians playing it, and the song itself. The song makes me want to jump out of my skin.
Jason Spinosa – keyboards
Day job: International man of mystery.
Secret shame: I did it. With the candlestick. In the conservatory.
Fun fact: I’m actually having fun on stage. I just have Resting Bitch Face.
Favorite song to perform and why: Suffragette City, because it’s 100 percent pure, uncut Grade-A awesome, from the first note to the last.
Q: What is the evolution of Stunt Double Riot – where did it all begin, how did you meet, what keeps you together?
Andy: Mark and I have been playing together in cover bands for several years, and with several different lineups. People have come and gone, but Mark and I are constant. We founded The Clones. We’d started building up a good following in Southern New Hampshire over a few years, when three members of the band left to do other projects. It happens – it’s part of the cover band process. We auditioned a new guitar player and keyboard player, and that’s how we met Jason and Eric. We auditioned a few other players and they were fine, but when Jason came in, it was an instant fit. It was the same way with Eric. The minute he started playing, we just knew. With Frank, who came in as our new bass player, it was a little easier. There was no audition. Frank was already family.
Michelle: Basically, I went to him and said, “Will you be our new bass player?” And gave him the puppy dog eyes.
Mark: Once we had our new lineup in place, we started playing out again as The Clones. That was a little over a year ago. Things were going really well, and then, out of nowhere, we get this cease and desist letter from some guy out in California who had a registered trademark on the name The Clones. We tried to fight it, because we loved the name. But he wouldn’t let up. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t played a gig or put out any new music under the name The Clones since 1992, or that we were on opposite sides of the country. He was relentless. So, we had to come up with another name. We actually played our last gig as “The Clones” at the Queen’s Pub last fall. We’ve been playing under the name Stunt Double Riot since then.
Q: Describe your sweet spot: What can revelers and partygoers expect to hear you play during your May 28 Queen’s Pub gig?
Mark: We play songs by artists we admire – but it’s not always the song you’d expect. They’re songs you know, but maybe not that artist’s biggest hit. We try to find alternative rock songs we love from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and 2000s that are upbeat, danceable, but have some balls to them. Nick, one of the owners of the Queen’s Pub, summed it up perfectly when he said, “You guys play anthems.” That’s what we do. People who hear us play usually end up staying all night, dancing their asses off to songs that they’d never expect a cover band to play.
Q: What is the secret sauce to being a successful cover band in the Greater Manchester area, [as in, how do you read a crowd and do you stick to your playlist or will you go rogue if the audience demands it?]
Janelle: We are constantly changing up the set list. We have a few staples that are always on the list because we know that people love them – for example, every time we think it’s time to retire “Blister in the Sun,” or “Seven Nation Army,” we reconsider, because people still lose their minds over those songs, and probably always will. Those kinds of tunes are timeless and have a lot of nostalgia attached to them for many people. But when we are genuinely sick of a tune, we will retire it for a while and bring in something new. We mix up classic, well-known stuff with newer stuff that’s on the radio now. The secret sauce is finding the right balance of both.
Eric: Occasionally we will go rogue, but that’s a slippery slope. If you play one request from someone in the audience, the next thing you know, you can’t get through the set list because you’re getting flooded with requests. We like to stick with the tunes we’ve practiced because we know they work.
Janelle: Yeah. We know what we do well. And “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama” isn’t what we do well. You can pretty much go anywhere on any given Saturday night and hear that.
Q: Do you do any original tunes or does that nullify the cover band magic?
Frank: We play covers only. Several of the band members are in other projects that write original tunes, so, for those of us who want it, we have that outlet. This band is mostly about the performance aspect – playing the songs we love that have influenced us as musicians, and creating the soundtrack for people’s big night out on a Saturday. I’ve never been in a cover band before Stunt Double Riot. I have to say that it does make you a better player because you have to learn a variety of styles.
Q: How would you describe the current climate for bar bands – is this a good time to be doing what you’re doing?
Michelle: It’s getting tougher for live musicians to find places to play. We think it’s because DJs are now considered “live entertainment,” and some of them even think they’re musicians now. The rise of the DJ as a musician/producer is problematic for actual bands. The bar-going public doesn’t know the difference. They just want to dance. We’ve been building out a loyal audience of people who truly enjoy live music, played by actual musicians, on instruments. But that audience is much harder to build than it used to be.
Frank: We like playing at places like Queen’s Pub because the place is set up for live music. They have a pro sound system and a sound engineer on staff there. A lot of bars are not set up for a seven-piece live act with three singers and a lot of layers of sound. The ones that invest in good sound, they get it – when the band sounds great, you’re going to get more people in the door.
Q: Most memorable gig so far, and why?
Jason: I’d say the Halloween gig we played last year at The Peddler’s Daughter in Nashua is a standout. We got to judge a costume contest and some of the costumes were incredible. We learned “Time Warp” from Rocky Horror, the theme to “Scooby Doo,” and the theme to “Ghostbusters” for that gig. Let’s face it: “Ghostbusters” is a cheesy song that was attached to a great movie. It doesn’t hold up well to the test of time. But we made it sound cool, and the crowd went crazy for it. They were dancing and singing along. That’s a true testament to a good cover band – if you can take a song like that and add some musicality to it.
Q: Do you do private gigs/weddings/reunions, etc?
Mark: We have done weddings and private parties. We’ve never done a reunion but we’d be down for that. We once played a birthday party at The Bounty in Nashua – that huge pirate ship. We were bummed that it wasn’t a pirate-themed birthday party. We totally wanted to dress like pirates for that gig. Okay, someone needs to have a pirate-themed party there, and hire us to play it.
Q: Direct us to your website/Facebook page/YouTube channel for more info on Stunt Double Riot.
⇒ Stunt Double Riot Official website.
⇒ Like us and follow along on Facebook
Queens Pub & Grille, 641 Elm St., is a British themed restaurant and bar at the corner of Lake & Elm streets, across from The Verizon Wireless Arena. Featuring fresh-cooked food and live musical entertainment .
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