Peter began his musical education at the age of eight years old, learning the piano from his grandmother, Elizabeth Herron Rickard, a retired schoolteacher. He later played 2^nd  clarinet in his Junior High School Band.  When the Beatles landed in the US, like many of his classmates, Peter learned to play the guitar and thereafter played in several rock/cover bands from high school through the mid 1990s. He co-wrote songs with RJ Reynolds in the late 1970s through early 1980s and now they collaborate again after he and RJ formed TRW Band in 2015. Peter has perfect pitch and he seems to  remember the lyrics and chord progressions to just about any song anyone remembers.

Irving started his musical journey playing drums and percussion at the age of 5.  His father then introduced him to melodies on the guitar. Irving eventually starting playing guitar and soon discovered the piano as well.  As a teenager, Irving played keyboards, guitar and drums with several bands and played live in venues around the Northeast as well as in Florida and Puerto Rico.  After high school, he studied classical piano and gained a degree in Music Education from Western Connecticut State University.  Upon graduation, Irving opened Medina Music Studios in Naugatuck, Connecticut.  There, Irving teaches piano, voice and guitar lessons to students of all levels and age ranges.   He also engineers and  often produces music recordings of individuals and bands, including TRW Band.  In the studio, Irving is often referred to as “The Doctor”  owing to his ability to make suboptimal tracks sound great.  All TRW Band members are indebted to Irving for making each of us sound better on  every song.

RJ remembers his mother, Virginia, sweetly singing show tunes from “My Fair Lady” and “The King and I “as she danced around the house. Then, a little older, RJ grew to love music from the Classical repertoire which his father, George, would often play on the living room stereo in the evenings and on the weekend. Like many people during the 1960s, RJ was powerfully influenced by the musical tsunami of the Beatles, Stones and other British Invasion groups. During his late teens, RJ read widely in the sciences, literature and philosophy. He also taught himself guitar while being immersed in the words and music of the singer-songwriters who had emerged during the 1960s.

A songwriting opportunity dawned for RJ during the Summer of 1976 when he met  singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist,  Dan Hartman.   Dan had built a state-of-the -art music recording studio in a 1760s Colonial era residence in Westport, Connecticut.   RJ took an immediate interest in Dan’s recording projects and over the next few years, RJ was introduced to recording artists such as  Muddy Waters, Johnny and Edgar Winter and Liza Minelli when visiting Schoolhouse Studios.

During the early 1970s, Dan Hartman played guitar with the  dynamic albino bluesman, Johnny Winter and his band. Then, a few years later Dan played  bass guitar, wrote and sang vocals for Johnny’s younger brother in the Edgar Winter Group.  As Edgar wrote:  “Dan was the first person I enlisted for the Edgar Winter Group….Charismatic personality  and stage presence were important requirements. ..I wanted (each player) to be stars in their own right.”    Dan was an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and was also a session musician who supported artists as diverse as Todd Rungren, Stevie Wonder and Ronnie Montrose.   During 1975-76, Dan built and moved into Schoolhouse Studios in Westport, CT, where he was hoping to re-launch his career as a solo artist.  This was same period during which  RJ Reynolds met Dan and handed him a booklet of  poetic  sketches.   And, within a month Dan had turned a few of RJ’s writings into fully developed songs.

Mostly a self-taught singer, Amanda Alter was selected for leading roles in high school and college musicals and other singing performances. She is comfortable singing in different styles ranging from Rock and Country to show tunes and Blues. She has been moved by the work of some highly talented singers including Arethra Franklin, Amy Winehouse, Jewel and also influenced by the work of Jason Mraz.

Amanda’s vocals can heard on many of TRW Band’s recordings, including: “This Fire Tonight,” “Indistinct Possibilities,” “Flowers for Ophelia” and “Night to Go Dreaming”.

DMB Music Biography in Verse

I joined the circus when I was a child
To sing for my supper and live my life wild,
I pick sweet guitars so lithely and twelve strung
To secret the dreams of a man with a forked tongue

From Freakshows my heart flies to seraphim space
And the Elephant Man is transfigured with grace
The contortionist Twisto and Rubber Neck Harry
The Arabian Sword Swallowing Sheik Hari-Kari

Always musical, Fred started playing drums on his brother’s drum set as an 8 year old and playing the family piano around the same age. By age 14 he was already playing in local bands in Westport, CT, first starting out as a drummer and then by age 16 primarily as a keyboardist. He studied piano further while at Berklee College of Music in Boston in the early 1970s.

Fred contributed keyboard work to the original version of TRW’s song “I Saw You,” in 1983 and then recorded an exciting keyboard track for the updated version of “I Saw You“ in 2016 which was released on TRW’s first album, Tightrope Walker, in 2017.

Visiting Medina Studios for a TRW jam session in Summer of 2019, Fred spontaneously played a song he had collaborated on at age 15 while playing with “Mother Rothschild’s First Aid Center Band” in Westport, CT. The song he played was, “Night To Go Dreaming” and the TRW Band members all heard some good lyric and music potential in this song. Over the next few months, Fred and TRW Band collaborated on a new arrangement of “Night To Go Dreaming” with Fred singing the lead and playing the keyboards , Amanda Alter singing harmony vocals and Kristen Vespera playing pedal steel guitar. To hear the TRW Band’s recording of Fred Reynolds singing “Night To Go Dreaming,” please click here.

Kristen started playing guitar in 2007 and since then has gained expertise in several other instruments including pedal steel guitar and accordion. Interested by many diverse styles of music, Kristen’s favorites are Country, Bluegrass, Black Metal, Polka and Traditional Irish. Kristen has put down some soulful pedal steel guitar and accordion to some of TRW Band’s most memorable tracks including “This Fire Tonight” and “Night to Go Dreaming”.