Cherry Pie By Steve Sharp of the Watertown Daily Times staff With an appreciation for its musical roots, Cherry Pie carries on the bombastic metal tradition of 1980's hairbands such as Def Leppard, Warrant and Poison. Cherry Pie will play Watertown Riverfest Thursday, Aug. 2 at 6 p.m. Cherry Pie guitarist Dave Zettle operates under the stage name Chet Manhood. Zettle told the Daily Times this week that his Waukesha-based band is just a bunch of guys who are out to have a good time and celebrate the spirit of excess that defined 80s pop-metal music. "Our name Cherry Pie is just a sign of the times of the 80s", Zettle said, addressing the band name that was taken from the title of Warrant's risque and well-known song. "We really only do one Warrant song, Zettle said. With us, it's more of just a whole 80's thing. It was such an over-the-top time. There was all the excess and our band title just signifies the era. We came up with it and it was like, Yeah, it fits." The 2-year-old Cherry Pie's five members come from Waukesha, Madison and Racine. The average age of the band members is 30. "The drummer and I are both from Waukesha and things just snowballed for this band. We met the Madison guys, they knew a guy for the band who was from Racine and it all just came together", Zettle said. Each band member brings years of musical experience to Cherry Pie. Zettle is a guitar teacher, the drummer is a drum teacher and the rest of the group paid their dues playing in bar bands such as Juke Box Heroes, LP The Band, Beyond The Mirror and Love Gun. These days, according to Zettle, Cherry Pie is all about 80s dance rock. "We play everything from Bon Jovi to Van Halen to Journey to Kiss everything from that era, Def Leppard. We don't do any really heavy metal just lighter, dance, fun stuff", Zettle said. "And we dress it to the hilt with the clothes, the hair, the stage pyrotechnics, fire breathing, the whole thing. We look quite a bit like Bon Jovi." Zettle said that Cherry Pie has been well-received over the course of its two-year existence. "We're starting to see that some 80's music is coming back to the radio. For so long that type of music wasn't being played. For so long it was the Seattle grunge, and a whole generation kind of lost that and it's coming around again. There was a strong response in Madison and it's coming around now in Milwaukee a little more", he said. Zettle admitted that with the noticeable resurgence of 80's-style metal in recent years, there have been other bands re-emerging in area clubs to perform the songs of the hairbands. "There are a few bands doing it, but they're not doing it like we are; going all out", he said. "Our whole philosophy is that we want to take people back into the day of the old arena shows." Cherry Pie's repertoire numbers about 75 songs. "We started out by picking a handful of favorites and some worked out for us and some didn't", Zettle said. "Some people make some suggestions at shows and some people will e-mail us with suggestions and then we try it to see if it works... Everyone has their own suggestions in the band, as well as their favorite bands." Zettle is a self-described Van Halen nut. "Being a guitar player, that s what I grew up with", he said. "We always liked playing this type of music", Zettle said. "Some guys stopped playing it. We never stopped. It's not a gimmick thing for us, we always did it. It's just fun."

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