S.A. Sebastian Gnolfo Bio

S.A. Sebastian Gnolfo is currently the bass player for the NYC-based rock bands Atomic Brother, Scratcher, as well as a freelance bass player, and an Apple Logic Pro recording engineer.

S.A. Sebastian formed Atomic Brother with long-time colleague and friend James Melillo, and released a single in October 2004, called "Elected." Atomic Brother started as a songwriting project providing an outlet to record, write and produce original music that he would normally not be able to play in other bands, but evolved into a band of its own. Atomic Brother records out of S.A. Sebastian's studio, which was built with James. With Atomic Brother S.A. Sebastian plays bass and guitar, programs drums and synths, and engineers, produces and mixes recordings. The band spent 2005 working in the studio writing and recording demos for new songs and filming their progress which is posted on the Atomic Brother website. Atomic Brother will be wrapping up pre-production in February 2006 and recording the new songs in March 2006, for release later in 2006.

With Scratcher, S.A. Sebastian joins some old friends, on bass. The band's sound is an amalgam of today's Brooklyn rock and 80's new wave and punk. In 2005 Scratcher recorded a CD-single featuring the songs "Still Waiting" and "Fade," with producer JK (Foo Fighters, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Backstreet Boys) of Pulsar Studio, NYC. The single was released in September 2005. Scratcher can be found playing some of NYC's more popular venues including the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom. In December of 2005, Scratcher began recording the follow-up to the CD single in S.A. Sebatian's studio. S.A. Sebastian plays bass new on the new songs and recorded and engineered with Scratcher guitarist Dylan Mitchell assistant engineering. The recordings are also being co-produced by S.A. Sebastian with Dylan and Scratcher's other guitarist Brian Kerr.

In 2003 S.A. Sebastian began performing with the pop group Moto Star, lead by singer Victoria Gross. The band performs primarily in New York City, but makes the occasional trip out to Los Angeles where band will soon be based. In June 2004 the band made an appearance on Nikelodeon's "Big Band Week" performing the song "Miles." The band recorded an album, entitled Moto Star in 2004, on which S.A. Sebastian played bass and sang background vocals. He is expecting to continue to perform with the group after the move to L.A.

S.A. Sebastian has spent the majority of his career playing bass and writing and recording original music. He has been driving the sonic bottom-end for such popular New York-based bands Otto's Daughter, Cave Penny, NVR and the Good Rats, as well as the international pop/rock-country band Joey Fulco and the Subway Gunmen. Over the course of his career as a bass player with these and other bands, S.A. Sebastian has performed hundreds of concerts in 5 countries and recorded on several albums, EPs and demos, and has had his bass playing and music heard on radio stations all over the world.

S.A. Sebastian, originally from Long Island, NY, began playing bass at the age of 12, in various school bands and bands after school. After high school his career as a bassist began, performing under the name "Sal G," with a "college rock" band called Press Gang. The band played clubs and college campuses on Long Island and recorded a 4-song EP. With Press Gang he had his first exposure on the radio, with the Press Gang track "By Your Side," on local college radio stations at the age of 18.

He left Long Island at 19 to pursue a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Professional Music at the Berklee College of Music. While at Berklee S.A. Sebastian studied bass with some top players in different styles of music; rock, metal and funk with Joe Santerre (Jon Finn Band), country with Bob Stanton (T.H. and the Wreckage), funk with Anthony Vitti, and Jazz with Bruce Gertz and classical, Motown, R&B, blues, pop and Jazz with John DeWitt (Aretha Franklin, Long Island Philharmonic) before Berklee. While at Berklee S.A. Sebastian met his songwriting partner-in-crime, guitarist James Melillo, with whom he has played in several bands over the next 15 years.

After graduating from Berklee S.A. Sebastian joined Joey Fulco and the Subway Gunmen for a year to tour in Switzerland, with stops in Italy and Monaco, performing everywhere from open-air festivals to clubs and bars to weddings and restaurants, even 1-mile inside of a salt-mine, returning to the US only for a month to record the album "Rock It Up Pancakes!" working in the studio recording with The Lovin' Spoonful's, John Sebastian. While in Europe he had the opportunity to play bass on-stage with European pop star Haddaway ("What is Love?") and with Prince Albert Renier of Monaco, and at the world famous Montreux Jazz Festival. The Fulco album was released in Switzerland and had a track on Swiss radio and sold almost 5,000 copies, almost Gold record by Swiss standards, in 1 year.

Upon his return to the United States he joined the Poet's, which later became the "heavy post-pagan rock" band Cave Penny. With Cave Penny, S.A. Sebastian performed at clubs and festivals in the Northeast of the US and in Toronto including Canadian Music Week and the Northeast Music Conference. Cave Penny recorded the album "Salamander Smile" and an Ep called "Soil Mechanics." "Salamander Smile" had success on boutique heavy metal radio programs across the US, charting as high as #5 "most added" record in both Gavin and CMJ in August 1996. In 1997, Cave Penny was named one of Long Island's Best Bands by Newsday.

While Cave Penny was recording "Soil Mechanics," and not performing many shows, he lent a hand to his friends in the Good Rats by filling in on bass for several months while they searched for a new full-time bass player. In 6 months with the Good Rats, S.A. Sebastian performed almost 100 shows, one of which was at the 1996 Grammy's Pre-Show Party in NYC hosted by Chris Rock and aired on CBS affiliate stations nationwide. It was also during this time that S.A. Sebastian made his first movie appearance as an extra in Howard Stern's Private Parts.

In 1998, with the album "Soil Mechanics" stalled, and reduced to an Ep, S.A. Sebastian decided to leave Cave Penny. He moved to New York City, and reunited with his old friend and guitarist James Melillo to form the band NVR. In under six months NVR recorded and released a 4 song Ep, Neverland, and made their debut performance in front of over 3 million people at the 25th Annual NYC Halloween Parade on the back of an 18-wheeled, flatbed truck. This performance launched NVR onto the NYC rock scene and lead to near sold out performances at every show within the city. The band followed up with an aggressive Guerilla Marketing campaign which included the use of an NVR branded Hummer equipped with a 1,000 Watt sound system, from which they broadcast the band's Ep and latest recordings, sold concert tickets and CDs, and "pirated" events to promote the band. While this aggressive, and over the top marketing attack, garnered the band a loyal following in New York, it also got them blacklisted by MTV for pirating a broadcast of MTV's TRL, which made them instant repellent to the record companies. This blacklisting eventually lead to the demise of NVR.

With NVR finished S.A. Sebastian joined the Goth-Industrial band Otto's Daughter. While with Otto's Daughter, he recorded the album Renew, on which he co-wrote a few songs, and played bass, guitar and keyboards and did some drum programming. Several songs from Renew were featured on "The Buzz" hosted by Matt Pinfield, on 92.3 K-Rock in NYC, and on WDHA's "Women of Rock" radio program as well as on several college radio stations including Seton Hall's WSOU. The band performed in clubs at many of the major cities on the East Coast. Otto's Daughter was also a featured performer at the Blade 2 movie premier party in NYC, Convergence 7, a Goth-industrial festival, and the Vampyre's Ball. While performing at the Vampypre's Ball in New Orleans the band met the producer and director/writer of an independent horror movie called "Strange Things Happen At Midnight," which led to S.A. Sebastian's second movie appearance, as a vampire's victim. After performing with the band for over 2 years several members of the band decided to relocate the band to Hollywood, CA. However, S.A. Sebastian decided to stay in New York City to pursue other interests; performing as a freelance bass player, creating the band Atomic Brother.

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