Dave Scheff (drums)
Dave started drumming the day after he saw A Hard Day's Night at the Corbin Theatre in the San Fernando Valley and was in a surf instrumental band with his school buddies the next week. By the end of high school, he was lying about his age and playing bar gigs. His friend Ron Fair introduced him to Steve Barton and they discovered they were simpatico when they recorded a demo at Steve's house. Steve and Dave kept in touch and occasionally played together while Dave continued making a living in Las Vegas and Reno with comedian Jerry Van Dyke and playing with prog rock group Bounty.
After a stint at UC Santa Cruz, where Dave met Larry Dekker in a class called "Psychology of Humor" (they were the two guys with rock shag haircuts), Dave joined Steve in a Beatles tribute band. When their promoters were discovered to have used Beatlemania's promo material in support of a Far East tour, they had to leave Tokyo in a hurry and on the plane home decided to start their own band playing Steve's songs and call it Translator. Dave called Larry who joined them in LA and when introduced to Robert Darlington by a mutual friend the band was in its final form -- and remains so to this day.
After Translator stopped being active in the late 1980s, Dave carried on with American Music Club (the Engine album) and Winter Hours (Winter Hours), toured with Dead Kennedys in the UK, and was in the Teatro Zinanni Orchestra backing Joan Baez, Duffy Bishop, Francine Reed, Maria Muldaur, Sandra Reeves Phillips, and French film star Liliane Montevecchi, along with a host of acrobats, jugglers, dancers and other fabulously talented circus folk.
These days Dave still records with Bounty but of course his main gig is playing with his pal Steve on his solo albums. Love and Destruction was released in 2021 to great reviews and the new one, Time Hard Won will be out early in 2023.