"DEUCE"- The story: Feuled by the desire to play punk/hard rock and the hatred of the corporate pop of the day, in the late 70's Tom Gattis, Marty Friedman, and Steve Leter (bass) picked up guitars and formed DEUCE. At ages 14 & 15, they played Ramones, Generation X and Kiss songs together. For being so young and in such a remote part of the Washington area, they both had a strong "rock and roll" sensibility and also exceptional talent; Gattis, besides having the ability to crank out buzz-saw rhythm at warp speed, could read music fluently from years of flute study. Friedman could play every Kiss guitar solo note-for-note. They recruited Chris Tinto (drums) and immediately started writing and playing original aggressive rock songs. Gattis' mother (!) built an enormous barn complete with a two level stage and drum riser for them to practice in. From the sheer decibels, people from all around flocked to the barn and subsequently these "practices" almost always turned into full scale concerts/parties/happenings. Often there were more than a few hundred people at these rehearsals. The band never rehearsed without an idolizing audience. Although Gattis and Friedman thrived on all this attention (and free beer and weed!!), Tinto and Leter had to be replaced by the more musically rounded albeit slightly over confident Billy Giddings (drums) and the technically limited but instantly likable Mike Davis (bass). Eddy Day got the gig as lead vocalist because he could imitate Cheap Trick's vocalist, and he looked like he could get chicks. DEUCE was the youngest band around and these nightly concerts became the talk of the D.C. area. They exuded a raw teenage sexual energy, a rebellious image and a belligerent, go-for-the-throat attitude that the other bands in the area despised. Where most bands practiced their little set lists in their cubby-hole studios by themselves, DEUCE took on the responsibility of doing an intense, ASS-KICKING, MIND NUMBING SHOW night after night. The songs were secretly worked on in the late afternoons before anyone would show up and by the time the night came the barn would start filling up with frenzied DEUCE fans and other derelicts who wanted to see what the buzz around town about these teenaged GODS OF ROCK was all about!!!

Deuce: Stories from the Past:

It was back before Maiden, Metallica, or Deth. And they were angry little fuckers, none older than 16, trapped in a suburban hell of soft rock and disco fags………….

The earliest gig for DEUCE was a pool party in Laurel, Maryland in 1978. It was Tom Gattis, Steve Leter, and Marty. Chris Tinto, the drummer, never showed up, so they wound up playing an hour and a half of Ramones songs with no drummer!

They canned Tinto later because he missed practice due to shopping for Buster Brown shoes.

Later that year DEUCE played a local high school dance with a new drummer, Billy Giddings! When they hit the stage, all the preppie boys and girls went to the back of the room, and all these other kids with leathers on, and pot smoke trailing behind, came in the auditorium. The principal got on the mike and shut them down after two songs. Marty immediately stepped up and announced “party at the barn!” That introduced allot of people to what was happening in the woods! An unknown band member wound up wizzing all over a bunch of textbooks in a classroom.

At the party at the Barn, this huge, fat dude wound up getting drunk and passing out on Marty’s guitar pedals, while he was playing! I’ll never forget the picture of Marty kicking the whale while he jammed! I don’t think they ever got him up.

They did their first legit gig at Mr. Henry’s in D.C. in ’79. By that time, DEUCE already had a bit of a buzz going, and they had some impressive originals written. During the gig, I heard that every time Tom touched the mike and his guitar, the house lights shorted out and went black. Later that night, after talking to the band, Tom realized the house lights never blinked out once!!! He carried a windscreen around with him after that!

They did a few gigs with a local band Called FACE DANCER (’79), who were signed as a lost-leader (band signed as a tax right-off) to Capitol I believe. Those gigs smoked! Marty asserted himself as a premier guitarist, and they became a legitimate force in what the area would eventually call, HEAVY METAL. Also, Tom got his very first groupie oral rousting, capping off a great night!

They played some gigs in New York. At the time, TWISTED SISTER was a big draw in the clubs, and allot of un-enlightened people compared DEUCE to them. You gotta remember, almost no one understood metal at that time here in the states. Tom got stoned and stole about 4 or 5 pounds of assorted meats because they were hungry as hell and sick of p.b.j’s, and also, Tom was in that robbery phase. On an earlier trip to NYC, they all got to check out a DEAD BOYS show at Max’s in NYC!!! Too cool!!! Being the country bumpkins that they were, they had never seen people openly doing toot and heroin at their tables! It’s the first time Tom ever thought of Mike Davis as being tame. I remember Mike Davis, always trying to talk the band into assorted criminal acts. He’d be after Marty to be a lookout or something, and Marty thought he was certifiable.

They went into a studio in DC called Track Recording to do their first demo. I can’t remember a damn thing about it, except Mike made mojo-juice, and Tom riding home with his head out of the window to keep from puking as the sun came up. Oh, I do remember Marty getting some cool sounds out of his pedals. No passed out fat man this time.

DEUCE played allot of what are known today as “Battle of the Bands” down in Louis Rock City in Virginia (’79-‘80). Even though the drinking age was 18, Tom was technically still too young to get into bars, as I learned when he tried to see PRIEST there. Win or lose, they learned real quick that Battle of the Bands was just a ploy club owners used to get bands to play for free. In other words: all the bands lost. Cool part of the gigs: before their first show I walked backstage and saw Mike Davis dressed in his stage clothes, as a monk with wooden Dutch shoes and he was sparking a bowl!

Deuce at the Barn, '79! L to R: Mike Davis, Tom Gattis, Marty Friedman, Billy Giddings in Background.

Marty was, undeniably, a unique sounding guitarist with incredible skills. But Gidding’s drum solos were equally impressive. In that time period (an now for that matter), there were very few drummers who could compete on his level of speed and above all, knowledge of the drums as an instrument. He used to solo on drums, then stand on his seat and start playing on the rafters, or whatever was hanging from the ceiling! Marty and he used to get in these fights at the Barn over what to play: straight beat vs. allovertheplace. Listening back at those old tapes, it’s clear Billy had a huge influence over the individuality of the songs, and DEUCE’S unique sound as a whole.

1981, Marty splits for Hawaii and enter Timmy Meadows. DEUCE go into the studio and recorded two songs, Bad Boys and I’m Saved. The tunes were printed up as a 45 rpm single. At their listening party, someone brought an advance track of MAIDEN’S Wrathchild from the Killers session. I quickly learned the power of a good production. The band gave a few of the 45’s away, and sold a few, but mostly they would get fucked up and throw them around the barn like Frisbees. Fast forward to the 90’s, that same 45 is being bought by collectors for upwards of $500 a piece!

Deuce enters a time of massive gigging, playing with bands like OVERKILL, MEGADETH, QUEENSRYCHE, TALAS, GRIM REAPER, and even RATT. They were pretty much on automatic drive. In ’82 Tom went to England and check out MONSTERS OF ROCK and the READING FESTIVALS, and he even got to jam with ANGEL WITCH.

By this time the carefree times of the past were over. It was a serious period of hard work and allot of annoying headaches. They eventually got Tim O’Connor on bass, easily the best bass player they had been exposed to. DEUCE goes in to record their first album at Capitol Records in L.A. There, they hear there is another band named DEUCE, and they change our name to TENSION. The album BREAKING POINT was released, a year later in ‘86, to great reviews. All over the world it was getting critical acclaim. It seemed that the only people who didn’t like it was the band itself.

The gigging continued, and a time came when TENSION either had to re-locate to a more media friendly area, or go their separate ways. To many of us on the outside looking in, Tom never asserted his will over the band enough (a fact that would later break up the band WARDOG as well). This democratic approach was a civil, but unproductive way of running a band. In ’88, Tom left TENSION, and got a degree in Civil Engineering from New Mexico State University. During his time in school, and unknown to him, the old album BREAKING POINT slowly became an underground metal classic. In school, he met the guys from Wardog, and went on to moderate success.

- Hans Jackings