 JEFFRY RIENTS is a
drummer out of America who has played in a couple of
melodic rockbands such as MIRROR and LITTERER. His recent
MIRROR CD got a favourable review in our magazine.
Although LITTERER never got reviewed, the CDs of that
band are very good AOR/Melodic rockalbums. Jeffry asked
me to some sort of feature on him to be published in
Strutter’zine. It was a pleasure for me to do,
because I found out that this guy had a long history and
also a long future to go, because there are new albums
coming up of MIRROR, LITTERER and a possible solo-album. It all began in the early 80s as Jeffry told me. “My music career started in a high school band and I moved into the rock and roll section when I met a singer called Al Morphew, who was a trumpet player in a jazz band the next town over.” Jeffry and Al started a band called RENEGADE when Jeffry was only 14 years old. They recorded their 1st record when Jeffry was 15. Jeffry tells the rest of his first band RENEGADE. “Just after that we took on board a new bass player who happened to be DAVE ELEFFSON, now of MEGADETH. We all played together for our high school years and recorded many records and toured the regional USA. In 1983 Dave Eleffson and I moved to Los Angeles where we met Dave Mustain of Metallica. Dave and Dave hooked up and I moved on to music school musicians institute where I spent a couple of years in Hollywood.” So, after RENEGADE Jeffry went to do some study in music and he must have learned a lot from this. After a few years Al Morphew, who was one of the original RENEGADE members, moved to L.A. and Jeffry and Al had several bands and so at one time the two formed the band MIRROR. MIRROR became quite popular through the Hollywood years and they recorded and played as much as they could. Jeffry adds to his time with MIRROR: “Things were quite well until the country music seen hit and wiped out the Hollywood scene. At that point I had to make a new decision about life so moved back to the Midwestern USA after some 15 years in Hollywood it was over. After returning to Iowa I hooked up with long time friend and musician called Steve Litterer.” Steve used to have his own band called LITTERER with whom he released ‘Rock this city’ and ‘She’s so dangerous’ back in the late 80s. Two great melodic rockalbums. With Jeffry helping Steve, the two decided to start again the band LITTERER. “We updated some old material and hit the road touring. I updated Litterer material and had a long time famous friend do artwork for me < Roland Dempsey > who did such work as the logo for Batman the movie. I played drums for Litterer from about 1994 to 1997. After several years of touring the bottom fell out of the midwestern industry. A new Litterer album is now in the works with me on drums.”  After LITTERER Jeffry
went on to do some other things. “After sitting
around for a while I played in several blues bands, one
of which I produced. It’s a blues album called Blues
Sammy. After some time I met up with an old friend from
Hollywood who had spent the last 15 or so years in Japan
playing and touring also doing radio and television
jingles. The guy is called BRAD LOVSTAD. We are now
working on a project that has a working name and website
under www.ratbonemusic.com This is simply a working name.
We have just struck a distribution deal with out west
entertainment a division of paramount pictures in
Hollywood and are hoping for a summer 2000 release. There
are so many aspects of my life.” And so end this story of Jeffry Rients who has some things coming up in the future. In the meantime do check out his websites at: http://www.mirrorband.com and http://www.ratbonemusic.com for some great melodic rock. |