Peppi Marchello has Passed - Our thoughts are with his family and friends

This morning John Gatto of the Good Rats informed me that Peppi Marchello, lead singer and songwriter of Long Island Music Hall of Fame band The Good Rats, known for clever rock anthems including "Tasty" and "New York Survivor," died Wednesday night of cardiac arrest. He was 68. Marchello was recovering from heart surgery last month, but had been feeling ill at his Nissequogue home in recent days, said his brother and Good Rats' co-founder Mickey Marchello. "He was one of the greatest songwriters and he was the greatest brother," Marchello said. "Beyond that, what else is there to say?" Rolling Stone magazine, the most respected Rock & Roll magazine, has labeled The Good Rats as "the world's most famous unknown band." Rock stars like Kiss, Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Joel, along with celebrities like Alec Baldwin, Rosie O'Donnel and many others, are among the many fans of The Good Rats. The band is extremely proud to have been inducted into the Long Island Music Hall Of Fame along with Billy Joel, Kiss, The Ramones, Blue Oyster Cult, Pat Benetar, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey and more. Multi-platinum recording artist The Ramones and Public Enemy both paid tribute to The Good Rats at the Hall of Fame induction. The "Rats" have headlined and opened up for such great artist as Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Ozzy Osbourne, The Grateful Dead, Kiss, Journey and many others during their career. They have performed at Madison Square Garden, the Philadephia Spectrum, the Nassau Coliseum, the Hammersmith Odeon in England, Holleder Stadium in Rochester, and many more. Peppi Marchello, the founder, lead singer and sole songwriter for the group, is still performing over a 100 shows each year, including outdoor festivals, private events, large concerts, clubs and bars. Formed in 1964, the original group consisted of 5 students from St. John's University...Ted Haenlein, Frank Stapleton, Eric Crane, Denny Ryan and Peppi Marchello. The group was originally called the U-Men and played most of their gigs in the Rockaways (Peyton Place & McNultys) & Long Island (The Attic, Tiger's Tail etc.). In 1966, Frank Stapleton's brother, John, arranged for the group to play at a club in Queens, New York (The John Doe Room) where a record company executive heard them and eventually signed the band, but suggested a name change was in order. The band continued to play top 40 covers while working on their own original music. During the latter part of the sixties, the composition of the band changed...by 1968, Eric, Frank and Ted (drafted and went to Vietnam, but did rejoin the group from 1970-72) were gone, replaced by Peppi's brother, Mickey, and Crazy Artie (bass). In 1969, the band released their first album, the self-titled The Good Rats. In 1972, the lineup changed, with guitarist John “The Cat” Gatto, bass player Lenny Kotke and drummer Joe Franco joining the Marchello brothers. The Good Rats continued to build a following, playing Long Island’s thriving club scene, along with other notable names such as Twisted Sister, Zebra, and Rat Race Choir. In 1974, the Good Rats released their best-known and most popular album, Tasty. It featured a blend of hard and progressive rock with subtle jazz influences, highlighted by Marchello’s powerful and raspy vocals. Various songs from this record, including “Injun Joe”, “Papa Poppa”, a rock ode about cults, the autobiographical numbers “Back to My Music” and “The Songwriter”, and the jazzy title track, received airplay around the country on FM radio. During the following years, the Rats performed at venues such as Madison Square Garden, The Philadelphia Spectrum, The Nassau Coliseum, The Hammersmith Odeon in England, and New York’s Central Park, as well as showcase rooms such as The Bottom Line in Manhattan, My Father’s Place in Roslyn, NY, Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles and The Paradise Room in Boston. They headlined or opened for bands such as Rush, Journey, Kiss, Meat Loaf, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, The Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, and Styx. Live shows were famous for the band’s stage antics, as Peppi would play air guitar on his baseball bat, throw rubber rats into the crowd, and beat the daylights out of a battered garbage can as he sang. On a nationally syndicated radio interview, a member of the band Journey called them "the greatest rock band in the world." Between 1976 and 1980, The Good Rats released a series of albums, including Ratcity in Blue, From Rats to Riches, Birth Comes to Us All, and Live At Last, all of which were well received by the band’s fan base, and received some airplay on FM radio, without actually putting the band over the top. In 1981, Gatto and Kotke left the band, and were replaced by future Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick and bass player Schuyler Deale, (who later played with Billy Joel and Michael Bolton), for the album Great American Music. Shortly thereafter, the band broke up. Throughout the 1980s, Peppi Marchello continued to write and produce recordings with his son Gene. They toured locally for a while under the name "Popzarocca" until the song "First Love" became a minor hit for the band (now renamed "Marchello"), with the music video receiving minor airplay on MTV's "Headbanger's Ballroom". This band featured Gene on guitar and lead vocals and also included drummer John Miceli (Meatloaf, Rainbow, "We Will Rock You"). The band recorded two albums (only one which was released). In the mid-1990s, Marchello and sons Gene Marchello and Stefan Marchello began playing out locally under “The Good Rats” name. They released three new studio CDs with this lineup, Tasty Seconds (1996), Let's Have Another Beer (2000), and Play Dum (2002). Marchello also released a live recording of a 1979 appearance on a Rochester radio show, Rats, The Way You Like ’Em. In 1998, Marchello wrote "A Tale of Two Balls," the introduction to the book Conflicts of Disinterest (Aardwolf Publishing) by sometimes controversial author Clifford Meth. In the 2000s, the band continues to play in local venues throughout New York, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, as well as playing annually in their own summer weekend outdoor festival aptly named "Ratstock". At one point, the "new" Good Rats (Peppi and his sons) performed as the opening act for a reunion performance by the "old" Good Rats. Billed as "The Original Good Rats" Peppi was joined by Mickey, Kotke, Franco, and Gatto on October 4, 2008 in a small venue on Long Island, and for a pair of sold-out shows at B.B. King's in Manhattan. In 2008, Gene Marchello left the band to go out on his own. Nevertheless, The Good Rats, featuring Peppi and Stefan Marchello continued playing weekend club dates around Long Island into 2009.  

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