This is one of the true but strange events that I have experienced in my life on this planet.
It was June 1999 in Hollywood California on a Saturday night. I was in the band Madareus and we were recording the drum tracks for our upcoming 5 song demo EP available for purchase on my merch page. Bassist Keith had been renting a house in Hollywood and had a garage in the rear of the property. Keith soundproofed the garage and set up a rehearsal and mini recording studio, it was a pretty nice setup.
Keith also had 2 roommates in the house as living in California, especially Hollywood, is extremely expensive. His only roommate, Chris, had been there for a while, but they’d just moved in to a new guy a month earlier. The house had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, a front living room, and 2 bathrooms. The new guy, Greg, had rented the living room (it wasn’t a big space). Greg seemed like a weird guy and now I know why and so do you.
Greg used different types of drugs, acid, heroin, you name it, apparently he abused them and had a mental disorder because of this. Well what comes on Saturday nights after “Cops” (@8pm) is right (@9pm) “Americas Most Wanted”! This genius who spoke to me on multiple occasions and saw me in the studio for a month had apparently forgotten who I was. Well, in “Americas Most Wanted” there was a fugitive killer on the loose last seen in Iowa (I think he was). This escape happened a week before, otherwise the guy had been in an Idaho prison for 3 or 4 years. Greg calls the LAPD and tells them that the escaped killer is ME!
Around 10pm we stopped playing in the garage/studio and Keith (bass) and Mark
(guitarist/vocalist) and I would talk about how the recording was going and other things related to the band. This was my first night off from work in about 3 weeks, so I wanted to check out and go home. I opened the study door and was talking to Mark as I was leaving, so my back was facing the driveway and my front was still facing the study. Now, when I left the studio, I always took my bag of drumsticks with me. A drumstick bag is about 8 inches wide and 12 inches long, almost like a soft-frame handgun case. So I finish saying whatever I was saying, I close the door, and when I turn around, there are about 15 LAPD officers with guns drawn and pointing at me. They weren’t screaming at all, but just a few decibels lower telling me to drop the bag and put my hands on the wall. I did as I was told and asked what was going on in the garage. They made me open the studio/garage door and back up; to stay the least, Keith and Mark were also surprised.
Once the cops looked into the room, around the yard, and into the house, the tension dissipated. When the policeman looked in my bag of clubs, he laughed a little, turned to me and asked if he knew what was going on. I looked at him and asked if the music we were playing was that bad. A couple of police officers then burst out laughing and he said “no, we were actually outside enjoying the free concert.” The cops told us that Greg called the LAPD after seeing my profile on Americas Most Wanted, telling the tip line that the “RED-HEADED killer we just profiled was in his garage playing a stolen stereo way too loud.” The cops seemed relieved when all was clear and so were we (wouldn’t you have been?).
The only thing he had in common with the escaped killer was red hair… The cops showed me the description of the guy: he was 6’4″, stocky, with tattoos on his arms and back, and a buzz cut. He had hair up to half of my back among the multiple other differences.
Of course, Greg went to sleep after calling the police to get some drugs. PRETTY BOY HUH? Needless to say, Greg was kicked out of the house the very next day!