{"id":808,"date":"2015-01-08T21:35:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T21:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=808"},"modified":"2024-03-30T21:38:30","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T21:38:30","slug":"sweet-leaf-shaking-sonoma-county-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/?p=808","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Leaf Shaking Sonoma County Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Guitarist<\/a>
Guitarist Steve Smyth and Lance Ozanix channel Black Sabbath.
Photo by Kris McDonald.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been 33 years since Sonoma County\u2019s longest running band, Skitzo, started its reign of sickening, barf-encrusted, thrash metal terror and vocalist\/guitarist Lance Ozanix shows no signs of slowing down. Ozanix\u2019s annual side project, Sweet Leaf, an Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath tribute act, will be celebrating their 20th anniversary together and will play one last show in the area before they reconvene again in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Sweet Leaf features a veritable who\u2019s who of the metal scene. Guitarist Steve Smyth has done countless national and international tours playing with the likes of Testament, Nevermore, Vicious Rumours, Forbidden, Dragonlord, and currently lives in England with his wife and dog where he teaches guitar to over 60 students. Drummer Chris Newman played with Intense, one of the largest drawing speed \/ thrash metal bands in the late 80\u2019s and also played with local hard rock outfit, Ariah. The group is rounded out by the ultra-talented bassist, Steven Hoffman, from the defunct Esseness Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cNowadays it\u2019s just one practice and go\u201d said Ozanix in a recent phone interview. \u201cThis year because of the 10 year anniversary of Dimebag Darrell\u2019s death, we have added some some Pantera songs into the set. Of course, when we run out of material during shows, we will throw in some Accept, Judas Priest, Dio, or even some AC\/DC tunes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI tried in 1989 to get Sweet Leaf going but I couldn\u2019t get my shit together,\u201d said Ozanix of the band\u2019s humble beginnings. \u201cPeople were in the band for only a couple of months at a time. All the current guys came together in 1994.\u201d
\u201cThis will actually be an interesting return to Spancky\u2019s in Cotati, as it\u2019s the first time in nearly twelve years since we\u2019ve been back to play there,\u201d said guitarist Steve Smyth. \u201cThe last time we were there, the power surged onstage and blew out Steve Hoffman\u2019s amp so we couldn\u2019t continue from there. We managed to get through nearly an hour set though, so that was a great thing.\u201d
Although Ozanix\u2019s loves the annual Sweet Leaf shows, he made certain to mention the status of Skitzo, his main band. \u201cWe just finished our 19th album, \u2018Dementia Praecox,\u2019 but have not planned a release date since we don\u2019t have a drummer.\u201d
And while Skitzo may be a bigger name in Sonoma County, Sweet Leaf has quite the following of its own and plays shows in the Bay Area, Sacramento, Fresno, and anywhere else in between.
\u201cWe just played Livermore (Pine Street Bar and Grill), Sacramento (On The Y), as well as our hometown area shows in Rohnert Park (Quincy\u2019s Pub) and Santa Rosa (Sprenger\u2019s Taproom). We did our second annual acoustic show there at Sprenger\u2019s. It was a lot of fun!\u201d said Steve. \u201c We average a handful of shows per year with Sweet Leaf due to the fact I live out of the country now, but we still can manage around eight shows a year.\u201d
Metalheads who love Ozzy Osbourne\u2019s body of work along with the entire heavy metal genre will be thrilled with Saturday\u2019s show however unrehearsed it may be. \u201c Expect surprise, I would say!\u201d said Steve. \u201cOf course, there are the usual fan favorites one can expect and the songs we love to play as well, but there are songs in those band\u2019s back catalogs that seem to get called out a little more.\u201d
Sweet Leaf (Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath tribute band) play Saturday, January 10<\/em>th<\/em><\/sup>\u00a0at Spancky\u2019s in Cotati, with Lord Mountain opening. 9:30pm. No cover charge but donations accepted. 8201 Old Redwood Highway, Cotati. 707.664.0169.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(North Bay Bohemian)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 33 years since Sonoma County\u2019s longest running band, Skitzo, started its reign of sickening, barf-encrusted, thrash metal terror and vocalist\/guitarist Lance Ozanix shows no signs of slowing down. Ozanix\u2019s annual side project, Sweet Leaf, an Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath tribute act, will be celebrating their 20th anniversary together and will play one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":809,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions\/809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acloserlookmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}