Secret Weapons Open Fire with "Something New"

Last updated on February 18th, 2022 at 09:40 pm

Secret Weapons is a New York based 80’s Pop band grown from the minds of Gerry Lange and Dan E. Created from a frustration of failed attempts in previous projects, Gerry and Dan have finally struck gold.

Leaving the responsibility to no one other than themselves, Gerry stepped up from his familiar guitar playing position and grabbed hold of the microphone. “We never fronted a band, so one day we were just like f*ck it, lets just go for it.”, Gerry says. However, before they began recording any music to release to the public. The two signed up for vocal lessons with the legendary vocal coach, Gordon Grody.

Gordon’s musical resume includes performing along side artists like John Lennon & Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Blondie, & The Talking Heads. He has even taught superstar vocalists Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga and countless others.

Dan and Gerry explained neither of them had a musical influence in their life. Oddly enough, they have identical stories on how they discovered their love for music. As a child Dan had found a guitar in the attic of their home. It had turned out to be his mother’s from the 70’s. Gerry chimes in to add, “I have the same story. My mom had a guitar that her boyfriend bought. She hated the guy, so she stashed it and I found it years later.”

Gerry was one year ahead of Dan in school, but was held back due to poor grades, causing him to repeat the same grade over again. It was blessing in disguise because that caused the two boys to attend the same math class together. Dan says, “Gerry would always turn around and try to talk to me. I wasn’t good at math, but I was definitely more studious.”

“I never wanted anything to do with him because he’d talk about guitars, while I’d be trying to pay attention in class.” Dan continues, “Every day, he would get kicked out of class”, then proceeds to follow up with a high pitched imitation of their math teacher, “Gerard, get out!”.

Conducting this conversation from a shared green room between all three artists on the bill, Brothers Keith Jeffery & Michael Jeffery of Atlas Genius quietly worked on their MacBook laptops as we continued our chat with Dan and Gerry. The wall-penetrating bass and muffled voice of Skylar Grey became the slightly overbearing soundtrack to our night, as she began to warm up the crowd for Keith & Michael’s headlining performance.

Since the presidential debate is a hot topic at the moment, I asked the two where they stand; Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz or Bernie Sanders. Dan chirps up, “We’re both Bernie Sanders boys.” Gerry adds, “One of our managers is the biggest Bernie Sanders supporters ever. He’s also a member of the band FUN. We toured with Nate for a while, so we pretty much had two weeks of getting the full Bern from him, and then we were kinda just sold after that.”

I asked my final question, what piece of advice would you tell your younger self what you know now? Their answer was simple. Gerard says “Start producing music on the computer now. Because once you get rid of the middle man, you control your own density in every way, and not having control over your own destiny is the most frustrating thing.” Dan adds, “..trying to tell somebody else what’s in your head [is impossible]. Gerry’s leans back with a sense of slight regret and says, “I’ve been producing music for 4 years, if I could say 14 [years], I’d be killing it by now.”

If I do say so myself, the boys in Secret Weapons are indeed killing it. Secret Weapons unleashed their first artillery onto the world wide web titled, “Something New”. The next of their show at the Fineline Music Cafe, they shared this crowd favorite tune second-to-last in their set. The rhythm had me scrambling for my Shazam app, practically singing along well before the song was over with. The chorus is one of which will have a hard time leaving your head. The only way to do so is to Youtube Lamb Chop’s theme song “Play-Along” (The Song That Never Ends).

Although it sounds as if they’re replicating the sounds of the 1980’s, the guys explain that they draw their inspiration from all decades of music. Dan humbly admits “Theres no fancy happening, we’re still putting it together.”