By DAN FITCH
For one local band, the road that led to sharing a stage with a
rock superstar began at a preschool.
For one local band, the road that led to sharing a stage with a rock superstar began at a preschool.
The Creative Play Learning Center in Gilroy. On Fourth Street, near the Post Office. One evening the members of Vent rehearsed among plastic toys. A few nights later the band – comprising members from Hollister and Gilroy – whispered a suggestion to Kid Rock, were given the green light, and then rocked like a hurricane as he belted “Sweet Home Alabama” in a Tres Pinos club crammed with sweating bodies.
“It was a blast. Kid Rock and Pamela, they’re A-list celebrities; these guys have bodyguards,” said Vent lead guitarist and singer Kosh Shioya of Hollister. “We were playing, and we asked him if he wanted to play a few things, and he came right down.”
That Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson were in Hollister, and then in a Tres Pinos club sounds, well, preposterous. But there they were on a Friday night two weeks ago, and there was Vent, playing a normal gig that became
extraordinary. Rock and Anderson had been on a sort of wedding tour. They had married two or three times in the past month, depending on which tabloid you read, and were going to have another ceremony at Leal Vineyards in Hollister. A Hollister bakery made a cake for the occasion.
Rock is a friend and business acquaintance of winery owner Frank Leal, who invited the newlyweds to visit. They came, decided not to get married again, but stopped in at Leal’s club, the Cantina Grill.
And there was Leal’s favorite local band, Vent, ready to ask Rock to roll.
“It was great,” said Vent bassist Junior Diaz of Gilroy. “There were 300 to 400 people, and 80 percent didn’t know he was going to be there. We knew, but had only told a few people.”
So Hollister and Tres Pinos became a blip on the A-list radar.
But Vent’s touch with stardom didn’t end in Tres Pinos. A week later, the band showed up on an even bigger stage – your neighborhood supermarket magazine stand. News of Kid and Pamela’s called-off third or fourth wedding ceremony (depending on which tabloid you read) in Hollister was leaked to ‘Star’ magazine in New York. A ‘Star’ reporter called Diaz, who wired a photo of the celebrity couple. The magazine not only ran a photo of Rock and Pamela, but also of Vent.
Kosh, who always goes by his first name, was caught off guard by this increase in celebrity status.
“I was at a real estate seminar and Junior called and told me we were in a magazine,” he said. “I said, ‘No way, why would anybody do that?'”
So maybe it is unlikely. The guys practice at a preschool in Gilroy. But in a rock ‘n’ roll kind of way, it makes sense. Kosh and Diaz have been playing since their early teens. Guitarist Bruce Gilfenan of Hollister and drummer John Michael of Gilroy have been playing a long time. If you rock long enough, you’re bound to be in the right spot at the right time.
And if you are not looking for stardom, it may find you for a few songs. The members of Vent didn’t party for a week or trash a hotel room after their Kid Rock gig. Diaz and Kosh went home to their wife and kids.
Kosh is 42. He graduated from Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill. He and his wife, Janie, run Kosh and Janie Century 21 Champion in Hollister together. He owns 25 guitars. Life is good. His obsession with becoming a rock star faded years ago. In fact, if he hadn’t run into Michael a few years ago, he might not be playing at all.
Kosh had sweated it out in bands in his late teens and early 20s, hoping to hit the sweet gig. At 19 he joined the band “Tsunami,” which made the Billboard charts with the song “The Runaround.” They opened for some bigger bands but ultimately were ground to mush by the ’80s rock life.
He lost sight of why it was fun in the first place.
“I was an introverted kid,” Kosh said. “But I was in this band and we played the high school talent show, kind of a ‘Gong Show,’ and we got a perfect 30 and the crowd went crazy, and I said, ‘I could do this.'”
But by his 30s he was so burned out he put the guitar down for eight years and worked on starting a real life. It wasn’t until he ran into Michael, by chance, that the passion returned. With the simple question “Why don’t you sit in?” Michael reminded Kosh of the joy of playing.
Soon Vent was formed and took off, in a local way. The band of seasoned veterans were playing for fun, and gigs followed. They play weddings, parties, corporate events, clubs and wineries, and have opened for Starship, Pat Travers, Y&T and Greg Kihn. They mostly play in Monterey, Hollister, Gilroy and San Jose. They play classic rock, or whatever gets an audience going.
“We do it because we like it,” said Kosh. “I always say I sell real estate so it allows me to play in a band.”
Diaz followed a different route to the same enthusiasm. A 1986 graduate of Gilroy High, Diaz, 38, was brought up in a musical family. His father was in a band and it wasn’t long before Junior and his brother, Kevin, were playing oldies alongside pop. By the time Diaz was in his late teens he “was an ’80s metalhead – Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Primus, Rush – that kind of thing.”
Now that Diaz is disabled and retired from the military, he helps his wife Alyssa with their three girls, and was thrilled to join Vent and make whatever gigs come its way. For Diaz, like Kosh, a detour around the potholes of life, and the rock life, yielded an open view of what was important in the first place, and what his father taught his boys.
“My dad was never looking to make it big,” Diaz said. “He raised us to have fun with it.”
If the fun includes sharing the stage with a rock superstar and getting their picture in a supermarket magazine, no one will begrudge the members of Vent. It won’t go to their heads. They’ll make a living and enjoy their children. And they’ll be right back at the Creative Play Learning Center in Gilroy to keep their chops up.
“I know you’ve heard it before,” Kosh said. “But when we look out over the crowd and they’re having a good time, we love it.”
Dan Fitch is the editor of the Hollister Free Lance. Reach him at df****@fr***********.com.
