By Scott Pam
For the past two and a half years, The Refills have been playing at various venues in the Coachella Valley. Formed when Pete and the Pills disbanded in December 2010, Peter Kadile and Woody Retro sat down and talked about creating a cover band that did not do the same covers as all of the other bands in the valley.
“Woody and I started going through bands we liked and we realized we had the same interests,” said Peter. “My favorite band is The Beatles” he added. Their set lists include songs from The Beatles to Billy Idol and Woody likes to close the set with an upbeat cover of “Rebel Yell” or “White Wedding”. The Refills are also hard at work on writing original songs that they are slowly incorporating into their sets.
Woody Retro and Terry Dubas keep the band grounded on bass and drums while Tim and Peter take the lead and rhythm guitar parts. Their styles mesh well for the different styles of music that the band covers each show. When they play the Beatles covers, the crowd is treated to the harmonies Lennon and McCartney created when the songs were first recorded as Peter, Tim and Woody hit the notes without a hitch.
“I started playing piano and switched to guitar in 6th grade,” Peter shared. “I got into my first band when I was 14. We didn’t know how to play the instruments and could not play any of the cover songs, so we just started playing our own songs. I even was in a band called ‘NiceBox’ in medical school. We needed a name for the band since we were booked for a party we were going to be playing.”
The current lead guitarist, Tim Kramer, has been with the band for just over a year. “Be a singer. You can string all of the guitar players end to end and go around the world 6 times and maybe the first 10 will make it big,” said Tim. “There are few singers out there and we need more of them.”
Their original lead guitarist followed Pete from his previous band, Pete and the Pills, and left the band shortly after The Refills started. As the singing is shared by all members of the band, The Refills can handle a wide range of cover songs – songs audiences just get up and dance to whether it’s in a small club setting or in the larger venues like the Tack Room.
At some of the larger venues, Peter’s wife Jill, also a singer, will join the band and sing lead on her favorite songs and backup for some of the band’s regular covers. There are times when Peter and Jill will just be out for the night at another band’s show and sooner or later they are both sharing the stage singing and playing with bands such as The Arrangements or The Mighty Delta-Tones.
The band is also committed to giving back to the community and recently performed a benefit for the first annual Patriot Ride, held at the La Quinta Community Park on Saturday, October 26, 2013.
Saturday nights you can find The Refills at the Grill on Main Street, 78-065 Main Street, La Quinta, CA 92253, where they are the house band for the ever growing crowd of dancers and cover band aficionados.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Refills/173086479420990?ref=br_tf
