Orbis

By K. Michelle Moran - Arts & Entertainment Editor

Sterling Heights natives who grew up only a couple subdivisions apart, Pete Asaro and AndyBinkowski have known each other since junior high.

So maybe it was inevitable the two musicians would end up working together in a band — although the
road to the formation of their rock group, Orbis, was a bit circuitous.

Even as kids, Asaro admired Binkowski’s musical talent. But when a cover band they contemplated after high school failed to take off, Asaro — a drummer like Binkowski — moved to Los Angeles to perform with the
band Pretty Sneaky Sis, which opened for Matchbox 20
(and earned a thank you on the latter’s “Mad Season” liner notes). The old friends met again unexpectedly at a friend’s wedding in Canada a few years ago, and
after an impromptu jam with the wedding band, they decided to team up again.

"There was always a little something special there when we played together,” Asaro said. “About a week later, after the wedding, Andy flew out to Los
Angeles, and we sat down playing guitar together and just started writing songs, and it just felt like
everything that I wanted to do, and I knew that I needed to be playing with Andy. And so we decided we
were going to start this ultimate rock band.”

Two years later, Orbis is starting to make a name for itself, in large part due to musical chops that are especially evident at live shows. The band — Asaro on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Binkowski on
percussion, currently adding Detroit area guitar virtuoso and fellow Wayne State music alum Nathan Montgomery on guitar, and the ever solid Sliv on bass — likens its heavy rock sound to a modern cross between Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.

Binkowski gave the band its moniker. “Orbis” is a
word he spotted on a hotel building in Poland several years ago, and thought would make a good name for a band.

And it fits the group; Asaro said they discovered it means “of the world.”

“We thought that was kind of neat, because we really don’t have a specific style, and we do sound
kind of European a little bit,” Asaro said. “But we do have our own sound, and so we thought that kind of worked with what we were doing.”

Orbis' debut EP, "Two Story", was recorded and engineered by Binkowski at his home studio & mixed and mastered by Jim Zolis and Mark Berry(who actually engineered parts of Paul Mccartney's Live & Let Die) in Toronto canada with Attack Records. Asaro sees a bright future for the quartet.
“I think because we’re all friends, and I think we generally like each other and respect each other as
musicians — that, to me, makes it work … To finally meet three other guys that I respect so much, that I
know are great — I don’t want to play with anybody else ever again,” Asaro said.

- Sterling Heights Sentry