Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Q+A: Francis Rocco Prestia

Who: Tower of Power

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday

Where: Suncoast Showroom

Tickets: $19.95 and up; 636-7075

Stephen "Doc" Kupka, baritone sax

Francis Rocco Prestia, bass guitar

David Garibaldi, drums

Larry Braggs, vocals

Roger Smith, keyboards, background vocals

Tom E. Politzer, first tenor sax, alto sax, flute, clarinet

Adolfo Acosta, second trumpet, fluegelhorn

Michael Bogart, trumpet, fluegelhorn, background vocals

Bruce Conte, lead guitar, background vocals

Trumpets: Bill Churchville, Jesse McGuire, Don Harris, Barry Danielian, Lee Thornburg, Al Chez, Mic Gillette, Mike Cichowicz, Rick Waychesko, Greg Adams, Ken Balzell, Dave Padron

Saxophone: Norbert Stachel, John Scarpulla, Steve Grove, David Mann, Tom Timko, Brandon Fields, Lenny Pickett, Marc Russo, Richard Elliot, Skip Mesquite

Drums: Herman Matthews, David Bartlett. Mark Sanders, Mick Mestek, Ronnie Beck, Russ McKinnon

Keyboards: Nick Milo, Chester Thompson, Dave Mathews, Ellis Hall

Guitar: Trey Stone, Jeff Tamelier, Danny Hoefer, Danny Jacob, Willy Fulton, Carmen Grillo

Bass: Bobby Vega, Victor Conte, Vito San Filippo

Percussion: Brent Byars

After almost 40 years as one of the top horn bands in the country, you might think about calling the group the Leaning Tower of Power.

But the band's ageless music continues to find new fans as the 10-piece group tours the world at a steady pace. Since starting in the late 1960s in Oakland, Calif., it has played 150 to 200 dates a year, year in, year out.

Tower of Power performs Friday through Sunday at the Suncoast.

Tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo put together the Gotham City Crime Fighters in Fremont, Calif., in the mid-1960s. Gotham became the Motowns and evolved into the Tower of Power in 1968.

The band has had more than 60 members over the decades, including "Saturday Night Live" musical director Lenny Pickett, BALCO founder Victor Conte and Rick Stevens, one of the original vocalists who was sentenced to life in prison for murder.

But Castillo, baritone saxophonist Stephen "Doc" Kupka, guitarist Bruce Conte, drummer Dave Garibaldi and bassist Francis Rocco Prestia are still at the heart of Tower.

Prestia moved to Las Vegas in March, but touring means he hasn't had time to lay down roots in the desert.

"You look at my place and it looks like a hurricane hit it," he says. "I spend a lot of time on the road, but we're getting ready to slow down a little bit."

Prestia has survived a liver transplant in 2002 and heart surgery in 2006. But he keeps on playing.

The bass player recently talked to the Sun:

Q: Has your medical condition affected your playing?

Not the playing. The only time that that affects you is in the recovery stage - certain parts of your body. You're not able to be as physical onstage as you once were. You've got to be careful. A piece of wood might slam into your chest. The same thing with the liver.

How do you like Las Vegas so far?

The only thing that really bothers me, it's not the heat. It's the cold. It gets cold here. And it's not even the cold so much, but when you combine that with the wind, wow.

Were you always interested in music?

No. I took guitar lessons when I was younger, but I wasn't really into it. My interest just kind of evolved. I got a call from Emilio Castillo - actually a call from a friend of mine that was a friend of his. We learned how to play music together. I joined the band as a guitar player and I really couldn't play that for my life and they said, "You play this," and they brought me this thing with four strings. We used to have this guy, his name was Terry Saunders. He used to teach us all the latest stuff at the time - Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Stones. My playing just kind of evolved from there.

You have a unique style, almost drumlike. How did that come about?

Once we started performing, actually playing music, we got hip to soul music and R&B. That was our focus, then we started adding horns and stuff. Well, I came from the R&B, the Memphis Sound and the Motown Sound and stuff like that. My style evolved from where I came from. Dave Garibaldi was like a real busy drummer and I was more laid back. The combination of the two of us is how it started out, how I play now. It wasn't thought out. It just evolved.

Who influenced you when you were starting out?

I was influenced by sounds. Motown. Everything out of Memphis. Back then it wasn't as much the player as it was the sound. James Brown had a unique thing. Memphis. Chicago. Back then when you said certain cities there was a sound that went with it. I didn't know who the players were until much, much later.

Did you realize Tower of Power was something special from the beginning and would endure so long?

I don't know. I don't think so. For me personally, it didn't really start to sink in until a few albums were already done. You get enough people saying to you over time that your style is different and you guys are great, all that kind of stuff. You keep hearing it over and over and one day you wake up and look back and see what you have done and yeah, you realize it is kind of special. That kind of thing. It's not something you think about in the process.

Is the band working on anything new?

We are working on a new album as we speak. It's probably three-quarters done. It's going to be a compilation album of old R&B songs. It's a new approach for us. Then we hope to start another original project by the beginning of the year. And we have a new DVD that just came out. You can buy it at the gigs or on the Web site (towerofpower.com).

The band seems to stay busy touring. Do you do as much as you want?

We are a working band. That's what we are. We didn't sell millions of records and so on. We're more of a musicians' band, which is great, but it doesn't make you a lot of money. Like I say, we're a working band. Most of us, this is how we survive, so we do have to work "X" amount of time out of the year to make it make sense.

Do you perform with other groups in addition to Tower?

This is home base for me. I'm open to doing other things. I'll do a session here and there. If anybody calls me I'm certainly up for it. As far as performing another gig, it depends. This is kind of the mother ship and everything kind of revolves around it. That's the way it is for most of us.

Is this your first gig in Vegas since you moved here?

Yeah, it is. ... The Tower of Power usually plays here once or twice a year. We just keep plugging along. We've got real loyal fans. People come from all over the country when we're here. That's one good thing that we have, a very strong fan base. We're grateful for that. It keeps us going.

archive