Private Stock

Private Stock, an acoustic rock duo fleeing from Galloway, New Jersey consists of Michael Squitieri and Steven Schurtz. Mike and Steve alike, add their talents as acoustic guitarists and vocalists together while Mike develops the rock edge with riffs on the electric guitar, where Steve adds a reggae twists with his beats on the Djembe in selected songs.

Formed in 2006 as friends from high school both had realized they had a passion for playing music. They are self-taught musicians and have not had any sort of formal training, but feel that it hasn’t hurt their music in any way. Mike has been playing guitar for seven years, while Steve has been playing for over three years.

Their influences include Dave Matthews Band, State Radio, and Dispatch. Both Mike and Steve have said that their love of these three bands brought their passion for music in general to a full force and compelled them to create their own music. These bands allowed Private Stock to write and perform music with a similar aesthetic in mind.

They describe their music as acoustic, rock, reggae at the moment with lyrics that convey universal themes, interesting stories, and good messages for everyone to hear. Although currently, they remain as a strictly acoustic based duo they do have hopes to add a drummer and eventually have a full-fledged band. Unfortunately they have been unable to find someone to work with who has the same vision while being musically compatible with both Mike and Steve to form an even more enhanced Private Stock.

Their live performance history consists of three years of bar gigs in South Jersey while also performing at weddings, parties, and other types of events. They started as a cover band, and slowly began to write their own music. They performed at Emerson College, opening for Chad of Dispatch playing “Outloud”, one of Chad’s original songs. Mike has played a Battle of the Bands solo at Emerson as well. They were nominated as being part of the top 5 in a contest for Pete Francis' music. Mike also performed on stage with Weezer when he won a radio video contest during Weezer’s Hootenanny Tour.

As for recorded music Private Stock self recorded their debut album “Get In Line” in Boston, MA from October to November 2008. They constantly write new music and have hopes to record another album at some point.

As for the future, they aspire to be a constantly touring band with the desire of gaining a larger fan base. They are currently trying to open for State Radio, one of their favorite bands who share similar interests to them. (State Radio is touring constantly, has a great following, does lots of community service work, and always has young bands opening for them.) “We believe given the right drummer and the right chance we would be the band to not just open and fall through the cracks,” (Referring to being an opening act for State Radio). Private Stock has everyone in their home town following them already and they would love to use that following to move into nearby Atlantic City and create a name for themselves and start working to broaden their fan base.