Quazy

— Mark Mahoney Cedar County News HARTINGTON – The community of Hartington hosted a Quazy party Saturday.

The rock band with strong Cedar County roots was the headliner at the inaugural Hartington Dayz celebration.

Chris Kathol of Hartington, a Bow Valley native who sings and plays the guitar for Quazy, noted he and his fellow band members were excited about the concert.

'It's always fun to play for the hometown crowd,' Kathol said. “We usually get a pretty good response from them.'

Quazy drummer Rick Pearson, a Hartington native and resident, agreed with Kathol.

'It's always a great time playing for the hometown crowd,' Pearson said, noting he was looking forward to 'seeing all the old and new friends.'

The four-member band also includes Bow Valley native Ken Noecker of Omaha, who sings and plays the bass guitar, and Jay Gilbertson of Yankton, S.D., who also sings and plays the guitar.

Kathol noted Quazy's concert for the Hartington Dayz crowd was a big production for the band.

'It's a rock show, there's no doubt about that. It's supposed to be an extravaganza,' he said. 'It's something that when you get done, they're supposed to go, 'Wow, that was great!'' The band – which was started in 1974 – planned on playing more than 50 songs during its Hartington Dayz performance.

'We've been playing for a long time,' Kathol said.

'A lot of the songs we play – people call them 'clas sic rock,' but they were brand new when we learned them.'

You never know what you are going to hear when Quazy performs, he said.

'It's kind of all over the place,' Kathol said. 'We always kind of make it more like a deep cut on SiriusXM (Radio), where it isn't necessarily the top 20 hits.'

Kathol explained Quazy always looks for songs that fit its style and is not 'just a radio band.'

'We kind of shake it up a little bit and make it our own,' he said. 'We look for something that everybody isn't playing.

'You'll hear songs that nobody else is going to play,' he said. 'That's kind of what we always like to do.'

The band usually performs rock music from the 1960s to the present, though it will play other genres – such as country songs – from time to time, but with a Quazy rock 'n' roll edge.

'We just kind of find something that fits us and then we kind of revamp it into where it works,' Kathol said.

'It's a guitar-playing band,' he said. 'We're a pretty uptempo band. It's pretty high energy, for as old as we are.'

The band included songs during the concert it had never played in front of people before.

'We always try to work new stuff into the set,' Kathol said. 'We have a lot more songs than we play. We mix it up a little bit so that it isn't the same all the time.'

Quazy has performed several shows during its histo- Quazy has performed several shows during its history, which includes two eras – 1974-82 and 2007-present.

Kathol and Noecker are longtime friends who have played in a band together since 1969 and are two of Quazy’s founding members.

The other original members of Quazy were Craig Jensen of San Jose, Calif., and Harley Zumbrum of Norfolk.

Kathol explained Jensen and his family had moved from the West Coast to the Viborg, S.D., area.

“We ran into him right about when they moved here,” Kathol said. “He was a pretty good guitar player.”

While Jensen sang and played the guitar for Quazy, Zumbrum was the band’s first drummer.

“Harley played drums and harmonica and fiddle and stuff like that,” Kathol said. “He was quite the showman. He was just a ball of entertainment. He was a lot of fun to play with.”

Pearson joined Quazy during the mid-1970s as a drummer.

“I always enjoyed Chris, Craig and Ken’s playing and enjoyed their style of music,” Pearson said.

Kathol explained what happened when Pearson became a member of the band.

“We ran with a double drum a lot of times,” Kathol said. “Then Harley would be the frontman for a bunch of songs because he has a voice like (singer) Tennessee Ernie Ford, really low like that.”

Zumbrum left Quazy in 1977. The other band members took a long break starting in 1982, with many of them moving from the Midwest to the western or southwestern U.S.

“Everybody had their own thing going and had kids and stuff like that,” Kathol said.

Before the band members went their separate ways, they had been performing almost nonstop for years.

“We had been playing pretty hard,” Kathol said. “We would do 25, 30 nights a month all over the Midwest.

“There were a lot more places to play back then,” he said. “We did a lot of ballrooms, a lot of club work.”

Kathol, Noecker, Pearson and Zumbrum reunited as Quazy in 2007 when they were inducted into the Nebraska Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The three Cedar County natives – Kathol, Noecker and Pearson – had all moved back to Nebraska by then.

“That’s when we kind of started playing again to where we kind of got together and worked up a set again and started playing different places,” Kathol said.

Other than the Hall of Fame show, Zumbrum occasionally has performed with Quazy over the years since then.

Gilbertson joined Quazy during the late 2000s, replacing Jensen, who moved back to California when the band members took their 1982 break.

“We were lucky enough to get Jay,” Kathol said, noting Gilbertson is a talented guitar player.

Gilbertson and Kathol are each featured as the lead guitar on several tunes the band performs.

“A lot of stuff has two leads in it,” Kathol said. “He’s a better guitar player than me, so he takes the majority of them.

“It isn’t just like one guy strums and the other guy plays lead guitar,” he said. “We do a lot of back-and-forth stuff.”

Since Quazy became active again in 2007, the band typically has averaged about a couple of concerts a year, usually in eastern Nebraska and South Dakota.

“We kind of like to find someplace new,” Kathol said. “We’ve got people that like us living all over.”

The members of Quazy take pleasure in performing together.

“We don’t want it to be a job,” Kathol said. “We like playing. It’s fun. We have a good time playing.

“We’re all pretty accomplished musicians, so it’s fun to play with somebody that’s good,” he said.

The band members practice about once a month to every two months in Hartington when they are not busy with work and other obligations.

Kathol is a retired blacksmith, Noecker works as a physical therapist assistant and Gilbertson has a career as a full-time musician. Pearson is one of the owners of Pearson Motor Company.

“I really enjoy playing with this group of people,” Pearson said. “We are close and we enjoy each other’s company. Says a lot after all these years. Rock ‘n’ roll! You gotta love it. It keeps us young at heart.”

The members of Quazy are going to keep at it for as long as they can.

“You never know if it’s going to be the last time you play or not,” Kathol said. “You’re getting up to that age where you don’t know how long you’re going to be able to do it.”