The Ringins Live Band - Entertainment At It's Very Best

Introducing Ron

Ron Drake is an accomplished guitarist, bass player and drummer with a bit of backing vocals thrown in. He comes in bringing either guitar or bass and backing vocals with any style covered.
 
Ron can rock it or mellow out as the occasion requires for any age group or venue. He has been playing in bands since he was in school when he also did fill in sessions for bands.
 
Ron has played in original bands, session bands backing an artist, covers bands and duos. He owns a recording studio and sound hire company so having the right sound equipment for the occasion is never a problem.

About RonRon

Experience:

45 years as a performer, guitarist and bass player for originals and covers bands.

Instruments Played:

Guitar, Bass, Drums.

History:

It all started in Whangarei at school and guitar lessons from Berrand Jensen. A band was formed called “The Haze”.

When Ron was approached to play lead guitar by Eddie Burkhardt, the drummer for the “SS Rebels”, he checked them out. Ron reckoned they needed a bass player and though he had never played bass he joined the band.

During this time he began doing fill in sessions for bands on guitar, bass and drums.
 
After about a year he left the "SS Rebels" and formed the “Mystic Mind” with Robert Hita on Guitar and vocals, Murray Steadman on bass, Ron on organ and vocals and Brian Fife on drums. He soon left school and eventually Murray and Robert left and Peter Munro came in on guitar and Ron went to bass. Brian Fife was replaced with Garry Morrison (Craft Audio).

The name of the band then changed to “Wages of Sin” which was later shortened to “Sin”. This continued for some time until Garry went to university and the search was on for a drummer. The nearest we could find was Dave Painting. The problem with Dave was that he kept dropping beats so the band drifted apart.
 
Ron then gave up music for a few years until one day beaching at Waipu cove he ran into Dave Painting again. He was asked to audition for a band. The band was called “School Boys Dream”. Glynn Edgar on vocals, Alex Mayfield on guitar and Dave on drums the audition was successful so Ron joined on bass. The band was quite successful but eventually Ron and Dave left.

They approached Peter Munro about getting the old band back together. Dave was an extremely good drummer and no longer dropped beats. Ron Peter and Dave formed “Starship Control”, Northlands foremost and arguably only super group. They worked on writing material and in 1975 were fairly successful and gigged around the north.
 
Sometime later Ron formed the band “Adam” in the late 70’s with brothers Steve and Andrew Clark. In the early 80’s Ron worked with singer songwriter Geoff Kimber and began a Studio and Sound Hire Company.
 
The 7 piece band “Pilgrim” was around for a few gigs then a new band was formed called “The Mad Band”, with Marty Cullen on bass, Kenny Glamuzina on drums and Ron on guitar. This band backed Geoff Kimber and also wrote its own songs with another vocalist, Jono Jack.
 
The band broke up in 1986 and a year later Ron and Marty formed a duo and subsequently released an album that was later released in Europe on cd. Later in 1989 the band “Heartattack” was formed and did extensive gigs all over the North Island and sold many albums. Heartattack was Marty on bass and vocals, Ron on guitar, Robin Boom on Keyboards and Brian Greenslade on drums. Brian was later replaced with Darren Clark.
 
In about 1992 a band was formed with Ron on bass, Steve Voisey on guitar, Andrew Agutters on drums and Jon Gell on Vocals. It was called “Band Like This”. The band had its own original material as well as backing other artists for recording and live gigs. Drew McRae and Mark Chaney were two of the artists backed this way but there were others as well. This continued till around 1998.
 
In 2007 Ron joined the band “The Vibe” with Drew McRae on drums and Vocals, Ron on bass and vocals and Roger Gardiner on guitar and vocals. It was a covers band doing the “Hauraki thing” 
 
Currently Ron is the bass player and/or guitarist in “The Ringins”