Joe Booe and Pete Bartolomei have a very long history. They grew up a block away from one another and have known each other all of their lives. On occasion, they would jam together in garage jam sessions, but band affiliations wouldn’t materialize until years later. Joe started singing in high school, having formed the band Judgment Day with classmates, and later performing in his college band, Artemis. In the early 90’s He formed the band Cold Busted, a Blues Rock band in Illinois. He would later be recruited by Eddie Gron for Rob Christman’s band, Geneva. The two worked together for a few years primarily on cover material, with some exploration into originals, where Rob demonstrated an incredible talent for writing and recording. After Geneva, Joe then worked with Easy Action, another northern Illinois band, at which time he was asked to sing for the Mike, Mike, and Ray band on their upcoming album, MMR. Around the same time, Joe started working with Tim Curtis, and helped to write and record on some of the Captain Pyrite albums.

Around ‘92, Pete Bartolomei left the band Wiseguys in Chicago, and asked Joe to join StrictNine, his latest project. StrictNine became a prolific Chicago rock staple, performing in the Tri-State area of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, working with Watermania Productions, and establishing themselves as one of the area’s premiere rock bands. StrictNine released a four song EP, StrictNine, in 1994. They then founded Nine Ball Records, and released the album Theories and Principles in 1996. Having a substantial catalog of material, StrictNine would later reform to record more material.

In 1997, Joe formed the band Quiver with ex-StrictNine guitarist Armin Harrera, stage name Paul Armin (later named 2 time musician of the year by Illinois Entertainer), including Tim Curtis (Captain Pyrite) and Chris Dewitt (Geneva). Soon to follow would be the band Monkeyfist, with Curtis, DeWitt, and guitarist Randy Nitch. While both bands recorded several songs, neither project released music.

Joe left Chicago and moved to Florida, then California, where he would join the L.A. band 7 Months. Joe released the self-titled debut album with 7 Months in 2001, which was met with critical acclaim across Europe in the Progressive Rock/AOR arenas. The album also featured movie soundtrack music in WitchHouse II. Joe would suffer a vocal chord injury in the lead up to the sophomore 7 Months album which would result in him exiting the band, and California, to relocate in Florida. It would be several years before picking up a microphone again.

Pete convinced him to try again, and after recording a few new songs, Joe started working with ex-Geneva, Monkeyfist, and Quiver drummer Chris DeWitt in a local cover band, Two Ton Tomatoes, and was able to recover from the previous injury. In 2017, StrictNine began working on previously unrecorded material and have since released several new songs. Joe also began work with Tim Curtis on the project Joe Booe and The Dog, completing the soon to be released album, Set Free the Animal.

With the exit of several of the members of StrictNine, Joe and Pete recruited Jim Davidge of Markette and Skullcandy to help with Joe Booe and the Dog and to work on additional unfinished songs. Joe and Rob had spoken many times over the years about starting a new recording project. This was the golden opportunity. And so, with the addition of Rob Christman, the establishment of the new line-up was now complete. Now working on a new album…We are…Reign of Fire.

Rob Christman got an early start to music. A really early start. At the age of 5, Rob began playing the acoustic guitar. His father was a skilled jazz musician and provided Rob’s initial training. Rob continues developing his guitar skills and then heard what would change his passion forever. With exposure to Jimi Hendrix’ version of Jonny B Goode from “Hendrix in the West” (1980), he was immediately attracted to electric guitar and has been hooked ever since.

Rob educated himself in formal music theory, percussion and rhythmic studies, classical and contemporary music composition, and instrument independent music theory education in both college and through personal study. He is self-taught in guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, violin, piano, and clarinet. He continued to delve into sight reading, recording, engineering, and music production. He put these skills to work with both live performance and recording before and as he was becoming a teenager. He is also self-taught guitar builder.

Rob’s father has been a primary influence through both recorded sessions and live performance from 1972-’80. Additional influential recording and performing artists include David Gilmour (Dark Side of the Moon, Meddle), Jimi Hendrix (Hendrix in the West), Eddie Van Halen (Van Halen I), Bach (“Toccata & Fuge Fuga Fugue D minor” and “Air on G String”), Mozart (Requiem), Beethoven (Ode to Joy), Berloiz (Dream Of A Witches Sabbath).He’s been deeply influenced by the stylings of Classical, Jazz, Blues, Progressive Rock, New Age, and World Music, as well.

Rob began playing in bands at age 11, performing live at age 12, and composing and recording music at 14. He formed and lead 6 different bands over 12 years from 1982-1994, including Ice, Alpha, Wired, XL, Leviathan, Geneva, and Black Essox. It was in his band Geneva where he and Joe Booe first worked together. Rob’s bands took him all across the Midwest US, performing live in every size venue for 12 years. He spent 3 years working in orchestral pit crews, from 1983-’86. Since 1994, he has worked as a solo artist, composing and recording his own material. He has also run sound and engineered for countless musicals.

Rob has been recognized by Ourstage for Top 40 honors 8 times for his instrumental single “Boundless” and for his collaborative single “Whisper Away”. Rob still plays the Guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, violin, piano, and clarinet, and is a very prolific composer. As a solo artist Rob has worn every hat for much of his body of work since ‘94, so he brings an incredible amount of talent and experience to any project.

Pete Bartolomei and Joe Booe have known each other all of their lives. Having grown up on the same block in Chicago, their music experience has many parallels. Pete began playing at the very young age of 7, however his first instrument was guitar. It wasn’t until later, at age 10, that Pete picked up the drumsticks. He could be found jamming around the neighborhood regularly, and was interested in bands from the start. Over the years, Pete also picked up the bass guitar, broadening his musical palette. While only playing together a few times when they were kids, Pete and Joe spent a lot of time playing music together as adults.

Pete first made a mark in Chicago’s band scene with the band Wiseguys, with whom he played from 1990 to 1992. It was here that he met guitarist Pete Zefkyles, who would join him in StrictNine around 1992. Along with Armin Herrera and Anton Scholl, StrictNine played throughout Chicago and the surrounding suburbs primarily as a cover band, dabbling in writing original material on occasion. With the addition of singer Joe Booe, StrictNine began directing most of their attention to writing and recording. The band saw the exit of Herrera, to be replaced by a few different musicians until the addition of guitarist/keyboardist Greg Whitmore. This iteration of StrictNine remained in place until 1999, and would see the release of the StrictNine self titled EP (’94) and the album Theories and Principles (’96), as well as the formation of Nine Ball Records.

With the dissolution of StrictNine, Pete focused on family, and returned to music with the formation of Skull Kandy from 2011-13, where he worked with bass player Jim Davidge. The two continued playing together with the Chicago band Markette from 2013-2015. Markette had a sizeable following and eventually gained national attention by appearing on WGN TV on The ManCow Show.

While playing in Markette, Pete convinced Joe to start working on music again, collaborating on some songs Pete had written, and later again to resurrect a collection of StrictNine songs that have since been released. It was here that Pete engaged in a passion for working in the studio with mixing and mastering, engineering all the new StrictNine material. Since Pete would be an integral part of any music Joe was working on, it was only natural that he be involved in the Joe Booe and The Dog project, lending drumming chops to new songs, along with Jim Davidge on bass, and providing all the engineering and mastering on the Set Free the Animal album.

With StrictNine coming to a halt, the boys needed to redirect, and Joe contacted Rob Christman, to see about working on some unfinished material. While at first reluctant, Rob decided instead to introduce the band to some material he’d been working, and it was magic. With Joe providing lyrics and vocal melodies, Pete and Jim were able to explore some incredible rhythms. From this collaboration was born the debut single. Now working on a new album…We are…Reign of Fire.

Jim Davidge got his first guitar from his cousin at the age of 7 from the moment Jim started playing he knew this is what he wanted to do. Jim played multiple instruments throughout school including Guitar, Bass Clarinet, Tener saxophone in orchestras and Jazz which won multiple state awards. Once in high school Jim played Bass guitar with multiple local rock bands.

Going into collage Jim focused on his education in computer science and his career for multiple years as well as raising his family.

In 1999 Jim moved with his family into a new neighborhood where Jim met Pete Bartolomei which re-ignited the musical spark as well as musical engineering and recording. Jim and Pete got together some friends within the neighborhood and put together a band we just called the Blockband which we were expected to play at each of the yearly block parties the neighborhood had. From 2007-2010 Jim played in a band called Bottomzup which was dissolved in 2010, Jim and Pete work on forming of Skull Kandy from 2011-2013 and worked heavily on recording and music engineering which became one of our main roles within future groups for Jim and Pete. The two continued playing together with the Chicago band Markette from 2013-2015. Markette had a sizeable following and eventually gained national attention by appearing on WGN TV on The ManCow Show.

Jim moved to Las Vegas in the fall of 2019 and once again linked up with Pete and started working with multiple musicians such as Joe Booe and The Dog Project and now the new band Reign of Fire which I totally look forward to as we have a very talented and experienced team of musicians!