Aftertayst is back.
Dan Kabanuck, guitarist with the storied Sonoma County metal band, says there was a time when he thought his band was finished.
“We did it for 12 years,” Kabanuck says. “We worked it really hard. We got really close. We hung out with Metallica. We opened for Testament and Death Angel. We played with some really big bands. We were there. We were right there. We could taste it.”
And then, it was over.
All that was left were some old posters, a stack of recordings no one had ever been entirely satisfied with and great memories tinged with a bit of regret.
“There’s an invisible veil that you can’t get through from this side unless someone on the other side reaches over and pulls you through,” Kabanuck says. “For whatever reason, that never happened. We never attracted quite enough attention to be pulled through. And ultimately we just imploded.”
Kabanuck eventually returned to his original career as a real estate broker.
“I took a hiatus from real estate to become a rock star,” he says, “then came back because, you know, I didn’t become a rock star.”
Now, not only is Aftertayst back—and getting ready for a huge reunion show with the band Krawl at Spancky’s Bar in Cotati—the band is redoing the group’s entire catalog with state-of-the-art technology at Cotati’s legendary Prairie Sun recording studios.
“The thing is, we never got a really good CD,” he explains. “We recorded a lot of our stuff. It never worked out. But my youngest kid started listening to my old music, and he was liking it. Eventually, I thought, ‘We should really re-record a few of our songs, and do it right this time.’ And then ‘a few songs’ turned into all of the songs, and now here we are, 22 songs recorded out of a 30-song collection we plan to release sometime later this year.”
But first, there’s that big reunion show at Spancky’s.
“I think we still sound good,” says Kabanuck. “We’re fast, we’re furious, we’re good old school metal.”
Aftertayst and Krawl play Saturday, June 29, at Spancky’s Bar, 8201 Old Redwood Hwy, Cotati.9 pm to 1 pm.
$5. 707.664.0169.
