23. Autodrive 1982-1991 (Tampa)

Autodrive, from their 1985 demo tape.

 

South Florida’s club scene in Broward and Dade Counties seemed to never go through a weekend without a standing-room-only appearance by the hard working Tampa Bay bands Autodrive, Stranger, and the Bobby Friss Band at Fort Lauderdale’s Art Stock’s Playpen South, The Button South, Rosebuds, and Summers on the Beach: the days of rocking with the female-fronted Femme Fatale, Gypsy Queen, and Lady Sabre, along with Canaveral, Cypress, Fury, Paradise Alley, Race, Rockerfellas, Rock Street, and Split Image.

There was no grunge-inspired “alternative” scene, yet, with Marilyn Mansonesque moody shock rockers, Collapsing Lungs creepiness, or Jack Off Jill promiscuities. Straight ahead, honest and entertaining, kick ass rock ‘n’ roll—with well-written, radio-made songs—was the name of the game.

No one was better at that game than Autodrive: no venue was too big or too small, as you could also see Autodrive at South Florida’s less-hectic, intimate beer joints, such as Bangers, The Keg ‘n’ Can, and The Port Hole. No matter the size of venue or crowd: Autodrive worked the room as if they were on stage at a 15,000 seat venue, relishing their stature as the toast of MTV with a #1 single on the charts.

Autodrive’s incessant touring—booking anywhere from five to seven shows a week, with contracts requiring three sets of cover to one of their all-original sets each night—crisscrossed The Sunshine State, taking them from points north to Pensacola and Jacksonville in the panhandle, down to the furthermost points south in Key West, Florida, where they became one of the most popular bands booked at Rick’s Key West, as well as one of the most requested bands on the island communities’ dominate rock station, WAIL-FM 99.5. Their shows at The Button South were gigs of legend: equal to the glam-rocking bombast of Fort Lauderdale’s own hometown, hair-metal heroes Cryer, Saigon Kick, Tuff Luck, and Young Turk—all of which walked away with major label records deals.

Autodrive—as is the case with the rest of the bands on that nifty, drop-down blog archive to your right—should have been huge. The talent was there. The songs were there. The stage show was there. The crowds and the radio support were there. Yet, the all-important record company contact . . . never came (or it did and the company screwed them, royally). At the very least, in 2025, we should be able to log into the digital marketplace and find a copies of Autodrive albums alongside Saigon Kick and Tuff Luck relics—and relish the memories of Autodrive as we downed a bucket of five-beers-for-five bucks served by a well-endowed waitress with the biggest of perms (named Stacey).

Wes Dearth and Dave Wehner, September 1988.

Jimmy Murdock, 1988, who reminds me
of Jimi Jamison from Target, Cobra,
and Survivor—in AOR-stage presence and voice.

 

It all began in 1982 when guitarist John Wesley Dearth III, aka Wes Dearth, and the respective drummer and keyboardist brothers of Mark and Paul Prator, congregated in a warehouse, rehearsing and writing in earnest. Their missing piece of a dedicated vocalist came in the form of Jimmy Murdock “discovered” by Wes and Mark on a November 1983 evening, partaking some suds n’ sounds at an area hole-in-the-wall pub. The band wasn’t so great, but they liked Murdock’s style. Signing on for bass duties, it was discovered his voice—in conjunction with his frontman-styled good looks—was too good to not be dedicated to singing lead (although he still doubled on bass when the band was a quartet; he picked up second guitar duties when expanding to a quintet).

The newly-minted quartet entered the studio to record a 10-song debut demo to sell at shows and shop to record labels. It was the time of big hair and spandex, with the likes of Cinderella, Dokken, and Ratt and that’s what their management—industry heavy hitter Warren Wyatt, who oversaw the careers of Tampa prog-rock legends Crimson Glory, as well as Saigon Kick, and the solo endeavors of ex-White Lion frontman Mike Trapp and his Freaks of Nature project—wanted: a ready-made band for MTV. The collective Autodrive muse dreamed higher; they wanted to create more enduring songs.

Autodrive, April 1986.

Autodrive’s promising, self-title cassette-only release issued in 1985 was followed by another recording session of new material in 1987. As with their eponymous debut, their sophomore effort bore no major label deal—but unlike the debut, the tentatively titled New World Machine went unreleased.

As is the case when anyone, in any walk of life or profession, tries to be something they’re not—especially when forced by money-hunger managers and knows-better-than-you record executives and producers: you become miserable. That misery led to Autodrive’s timely demise, just as grunge reared its ugly, caffeine-druken head; if signed to a major label at the time: Autodrive would have most definitely—regardless of their talents, along with Wingers and Slaughters—been dropped . . . and indebted to a record company advance they’d never pay off.

It still would have been nice to have had one or two, once shiny, major label albums from Autodrive in our record collection—when we need a dose of “youth” to get us through our marriages, mortgages, and divorces . . . at least I would find it youthful-comforting, like when I pull out my copy of Things You’ve Never Done Before from fellow Tampa locals-gone-major, Roxx Gang. It’s the reason I compose this Florida band essays blogverse: I’m regressing to those good times to make it through another day.

So, what happened after Autodrive, you ask?

Mark Prator, 1988.

Paul Prator, 1988.

The Prator brothers transitioned into studio work: Mark Prator also worked as a recording engineer at Tampa’s death-metal renowned Morrisound Studios (that’s Mark on the boards for releases by the genre’s Coroner, Kreator, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Savatage) in between his tours backing the solo careers of Sebastian Bach of Skid Row, Mike Trapp of White Lion, and Fish from British prog-rockers, Marillion. By the mid-’90s Mark became a full-time member of prog-thrashers, Iced Earth.

As a post-Autodrive solo artist under his birth name, Wes Dearth released European solo albums and toured as the opening act to Marillion, joined Mark Prator on the road backing the solo careers of Mike Trapp and Fish, then began an eight-year stint in 2002 with the Scottish alternative band, Porcupine Tree. As of 2021 he’s a full-time touring and recording member of the platinum-selling alternative band, Vertical Horizon, as well as backing fellow alt-Floridians Sister Hazel on the road. Keeping up with his Tampa rock roots, Mark Prator causally backs the still-locally active Greg Billings from fellow hometown rockers, Stranger.

Long Island records, an overseas European reissues label based in Germany, released a vault-clearing retrospective of Autodrive in 1995.

* * *

You can listen to the complete discography of Autodrive, featuring their 1985 and 1987 recordings, courtesy of a catch-all playlist on Over the Edge Radio You Tube.

You can catch up with John Wesley Dearth on his official You Tube channel, as well as with his extensive Q&A with the Euro-digital publication, Innerviews, in 2015.