Vampire Tap is me, Mike Hunsberger. I play all the instruments and stuff.
Early to mid 80's:
I got my first bass and amp for my high school graduation (with all the money I received plus some of my own). This was the first instrument I ever really played except some drums I had messed with. The bass was a JetGlo Rickenbacker 4001 and the bass amp was a Randall RB-120 with a 15\" Speaker. That bass was the coolest bass ever and if it wouldn't have been such a great instrument I probably would not have kept playing. At that time I was working with Kevin Gayton. His brother David played guitar and they new another guy Brad Skaife who played drums. We formed a band but I couldn't even play my bass yet. We played some fun covers of Ramones, Eddie Cochran and other early punk. We came up with a few short lived band names and finally kept Imminent Attack. After a while it was obvious I didn't have the guts to play in front of anything more than a small group of people and still couldn't play that good so Jim Kading from The Bloody Mattress' took over on bass. I kept practicing on my own and then decided to get my first guitar. It was a really goofy used Fender Duo-Sonic. It took me quite some time to figure out how to play barre chords. After that I started jamming with the band again on second guitar. I was usually drowned out by the rest of the band but I was learning. After a while I got a bit better and started doing shows with the band all the time. I then purchased a Hamer Prototype guitar. I had many guitars during those years including a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe, Strings and Things Bluesbreaker?, Headless Steinberger clone, etc. Also during that time I bought a Musicman Sabre bass, a fretless Ventura bass, a cheap ass SG short scale copy bass(that has been in many hands), Amps included a 20TH anniversary Marshall 2x12 combo, Music Man Head and Ampeg Convertible Bass Amp. More to come...
Late 80's:
- Band with Jordan, George, Dave Dorst and Kevin Gayton. Once again we had some cool songs and potential but not enough money or enthusiasm to keep it going. Can't remember if we really had a name.
- Mors Oculus with Jordan Trais and Dave Dorst. Played only a few shows but could have been good if we would have been serious. Memorable was our theme from Halloween. It kicked ass with Dave's double kickin style.Also songs like Werewolf, Mind Rape, Mausoleum and others rocked hard.
Recently found a tape with some songs on it. Might post some just to get an idea what we sounded like.
90's:
- Cybrid Project - with Tom Muschitz. This was our first real music project based on drum machines, samplers and influenced heavily by Skinny Puppy.
- alien faktor - This was Tom's project and he asked me to play guitar. We actually did a few live shows released CD's and played twice in NYC.
- Vampire Tap is born...
Present:
I am hoping to restart a project that I wanted to do for a long time. Dracuul: An Acid/Punk Jazz vibe. Who knows? It could happen.