How to go
Who: DeadRingers Guild with Devium and 9 Volt, with special guest host Mindy Hall from VH1’s “Rock of Love”
When: 9 p.m. Saturday, April 10
Where: Night Gallery, 1610 Mitchell Blvd.
Ages: 18 and older
Cost: $10
SPRINGFIELD — Back in the late ’90s, Michael Compton fronted Shovelhead, which, if you weren’t quite old enough to get into Club Panama at the time, played a kind of music known as “nu-metal.”
Now the Springfielder-turned-Floridian is set to show off his latest venture — a band with a sound so old, so classic, it’s now obvious that nu-metal should be regarded as the New Coke of metal.
After all, nothing will top the majestic gallop of ’80s metal.
Bands like Iron Maiden got the formula right the first time.
It just took a 17-year-old guitar whiz to get the 36-year-old Compton — a guy admittedly reared on Dio and Priest — to realize that.
“The dude’s that good,” Compton said.
Compton will be back in Springfield doing what he does best — fronting a band — when DeadRingers Guild makes its local debut Saturday, April 10, at the Night Gallery with Devium and 9 Volt.
Formed in Panama City Beach, the Guild is out touring around the guitarist’s spring break from high school.
“The talent of the band is just phenomenal,” Compton said. “It will be a show. They’re going to see incredible craftsmanship. The musicians (in the crowd) will definitely enjoy it.”
That guitarist, Jake Dreyer, also just happens to take lessons from Megadeth’s Chris Broderick.
Admittedly “more adventurous” than Shovelhead, according to Compton, the songs on the DeadRingers Guild MySpace page capture the virtuosity and all-around epicness (is that a word?) of old-school metal to a tee. (With the recent loss of its second guitar player, though, the band will have to work a little harder to regain that extra oomph live.)
The band appropriately opened for Paul Di’Anno, the original lead singer of Maiden, when he played a Panama City Beach club back in February.
“The main consensus,” Compton said, “was we stole the show.”
Just a little more than a year ago, Compton seemed content to play around Panama City with an acoustic guitar, leading his old mates in Shovelhead to joke that he’d turned into a lounge act.
Then DeadRingers Guild lost its singer.
“The talent was there,” Compton said. “I wanted to be a part of it, for sure.”
He auditioned and landed the gig.
“At first,” he said, “I was hoping to guide them in a new direction. But when I got into it, I found I enjoyed it. It’s a whole different ball of wax for me vocally.
“It’s real challenging to hit the high notes, but my voice is getting to where it’s becoming second nature. I sounded like a screeching cat for a while there.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
About the Author