How I became a Gibson Man

06.12.2007- CST

As I walked in the door of this room behind some house I had never seen before, sound blared through the door. The smell of stale cigarette smoke filled the gray studio's air. I had started playing bass when I was in sixth grade, and a friend of my cousin's invited me to join his band. At this point, I never would have known what it all would lead to. A few irrelevant people stood beside me, but so did Joe Bindschadler. Joe was an excellent drummer, and he and I have a musical bond that to this day has never been broken. We both share a love of music, particularly classic rock.

This band that we were in was, quite honestly, horribly atrocious. But one day, Joe called me and said, "Do you want to join me in a side project with another guitar player and play classic rock?" And I said, "Okay." Over time, this side project became our main focus. Both of us had decided to just stop talking to the people in the other band. It marked the beginning of the James Killgallon and Joe Bindschadler collaboration. Some songs we play today came out of those days. It also marked the beginning of something else.

Eventually, the guitar player we were playing with dropped out, the truth is he didn't even show up for our first gig. We couldn't find any guitar players, but soon realized that almost anyone could play bass. So I decided to play guitar myself and find a bassist. We played some shows at local biker bars, and after running through a couple different band members recruited Josh Coulombe to play bass.

Months of jamming in that gray room brought out some great music. But more importantly in my career, it marked the beginning of me playing guitar. We were thrilled that when we performed that people liked it. They liked it a lot. As a matter of fact, they went crazy for what was the beginning of No Circus. Those early days helped us grow incredibly, both as musicians and as people. We discovered what we were truly meant to do.

Over the next year, we all evolved. We practiced five days a week, and became tighter than any local band. Josh came into his own on bass, Joe went from solid to steel, and I went from mediocre to pretty good. And like any band, just as times were looking up for No Circus, we broke up. This occurred for quite a few reasons, none of which I would like to talk about.

Soon after that I went to see the Doobie Brothers, and I started talking to the bass player of the opening act. After some discussion, he invited me to come sit in with his band at a club they were playing at later that night. The crowd was blown away. People popped open their cell phones and started calling everyone they knew to come hear me play. One of the people who came was Joe Skinner.

Joe Skinner is one of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure to meet. He teaches sound and music business at Valencia Community College. Quite the popular guy, he rides around Winter Park on his Vespa. The peculiar thing about this is that Joe Skinner is a rather large man. He asked for my business card, and I also gave him a No Circus CD. Come to find out he knew my original music mentor and bass teacher Dan Walters.

So Joe took my CD to producer Tony Battaglia, and then decided to find a replacement drummer for us. He went to a local music store's drum contest, saw this awesome drummer, and started telling him about No Circus. Ironically it was Joe Bindschadler and, long story short, No Circus was back in business.

After some help and some healing, a great jam at Tony's along with fantastic venison tacos created by Ron Conti, we wrote some of the best songs of our career to date. Our advisors encouraged us to enter the 2006 Florida Music Festival in Orlando. The day of this Festival, I was sick as hell. So I popped a handful of decongestants and went on with the show. During the event I met a rep from Gibson Guitars, and I've been a Gibson man ever since!

A lot has happened since then, enough to write a short book out of. We just played the 2007 Florida Music Festival and are looking forward to what the our futures may hold. We're working on a live video and some touring, so look for us in the near future.

James/No Circus