Whisper Garden

The history of the band, Whisper Garden by David Griffith The band, Whisper Garden, got its start almost as a joke. It was the fall of 2004, and I was planning a Halloween party. My friend, Ben Brown -- a professional musician, suggested that we put together a band to play for the party. Things fell together fairly quickly, Ben would play guitar and sing, I would play bass. Ben's girlfriend, Kim, would play piano and sing. Ben knew a talented multi-instrumentalist, Jason, who was wanting to practice some on drums,and that filled out the lineup.

A selection of songs ranging from Cake to Black Sabbath were selected and practiced. But something was missing... a band name. Several possibilities were suggested and rejected, and then only a few days before the party, inspiration struck. I had recently finished writing my first novel. Ben and Kim wrote a song based on the novel. The name of the song was the same as the name of the novel, and in a fit of shameless self promotion I suggested we name the band after the song named after the novel. And Whisper Garden was born.

The Halloween party rolled around and Whisper Garden played to an enthusiastic crowd of at least five or six people. I dressed as Gene Simmons. ( also learned that cheep fake blood looks like drool under a red light. The stuff stained my mouth, chest and bass strap, but in the video it looks like I am drooling on myself.) Ben dressed as Tommy Iomi. Jason dressed as Tommy Lee. (you can't see the scariest part of his costume. which is probably a good thing.) Kim... dressed sexy. She's good at that. And that was that. The party was over. The band had served its function. We all went back to our normally scheduled lives.

At least until January, when Ben got a gig at a coffeshop. Ben had a problem though, the gig was for original material and he only had enough solo material for half of a show. He did however have enough material written for a band to fill out the rest of the show. So phone calls were made. A new drummer was found (Jason didn't have time to play regularly.) And Whisper Garden was reborn. And it was good. (or at least fun) We continued to play coffeshops for a few months (during which time we went through a Spinal Tap like series of drummers.) During that time Ben used his considerable range of musical connections to add a soloist to our numbers.

Then, on a whim we entered WKQQ's decent exposure contest. I'd love to say that we won. I could say that even being in the contest was a victory. We did get a lot of exposure from it. Frankly, as the Jimmy Carter Experience (one of our competitors) put it, "losing is the new winning." We got a lot more at our next gig, opening for the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Kentucky Theatre. It was easily our biggest (and most enthusiastic) audience to date. We like big and enthusiastic audiences. If you know of one that needs a band to play for it, please contact us.