Fab Faux member opens up on playing Beatles songs

Fab Faux, the incredible Beatles tribute band will be performing at the State Theatre this Saturday night Nov 11. Founded by Will Lee, former bassist for "The Late Show with David Letterman", the group features Jimmy Vivino (who's Conan O Brien's band leader), Rich Pagano, Frank Agnello, and Jack Petruzzelli, who called New Jersey 101.5 to talk about the band.

What sets Fab Faux apart from other "Beatles" tribute bands is that they don't dress up to look like the "Fab Four." "We look more like the Sopranos but we sound like the Beatles," says Petruzzelli. He admits that they got into this so that they can nerd out on the Beatles, and they do, to the point where every note is meticulously reproduced.

"We treat this music like it's our modern day classical music - as if we're going to play Beethoven or Bach - and we have to get that note right like the composer wanted it, play it like that!"

Playing the Beatles has been an education for Jack, "It's magical, Timothy Leary once said 'the Beatles were four agents sent by God to enlighten us.' It's pure joy to do it."

This Saturday's show will focus on the Apple years (later Beatles music, such as Hey Jude, The White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be) complete with strings and horns for bigger production.

We also got into how some of the music is recreated such as he opening note for "A Hard Days Night," which has been discussed recently by Randy Bachman, as well as the hardest song for the band to play which to my surprise was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Petruzzelli says "Grabbing the essence from that track and the youth from that track. I shied away from it for years and I just had to embrace it, it takes more time than Revolution 9 for me."

As for Beatle feedback, Petruzzelli met McCartney in 1991 at a pizza joint and they talked about Fats Waller. Paul asked Will Lee if they played "Tomorrow Never Knows" and Lee said they did to which Paul replied "Oh you must be pretty good then."

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