From Big League Dreams To Heavy Metal Glory

Paramus native Dan Lorenzo was a standout pitcher and shortstop with big league dreams in the Paramus Little League program in the 1970s. 

Then, while he was an eighth grader at East Brook Junior High School, the rock-and-roll bug bit and Lorenzo never looked back. He started playing guitar as a high school freshman and went on to form the heavy metal bands Hades and Non-Fiction, which combined have sold more than 100,000 albums.

These days, Lorenzo works in advertising, lives in Ramsey with his wife, Gina, and is more likely to be seen playing pickup basketball at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood than banging his head on stage.

In a recent interview at his home, Lorenzo looked back on his career.

“I started to get into Kiss in eighth grade,” said Lorenzo, a 1981 graduate. “I was so blown away by Kiss, and then Aerosmith and Cheap Trick and AC/DC.”

Lorenzo was so determined to be a professional heavy metal guitarist that he picked out his first band’s name, Hades, before he started playing guitar. The first version of Hades included singer Paul Smith, Lorenzo’s good friend and fellow Paramus resident. Another schoolmate, Dan Garber, worked as a guitar technician with Hades and Non-Fiction.

“I picked the name [Hades] from Greek mythology class with Mr. Witte in freshman year,” Lorenzo said. “When he said Hades was the God of the underworld, I thought he meant the mafia.”

By the mid-1980s, Hades’ lineup solidified and included Lorenzo and Scott LePage (New Milford) on guitars, singer Alan Tecchio (Closter), drummer Tom Coombs (Ridgefield Park) and bassist Jimmy Schulman (Staten Island).

In 1987, the band released its first album, “Resisting Success.” The follow-up record, “If At First You Don’t Succeed,” came one year later. 

Hades’ highly-complex style of speed metal drew a loyal following, and the group regularly sold out such venues as the Soap Factory in Palisades Park, Studio 1 in Newark and The China Club in Hillsdale.

Lorenzo recalled the thrill of hearing his songs on the radio.

“You’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is really starting to move,’’’ he said. “We thought we were going to be big.”   

But the band began to pull in different directions, and Hades broke up in 1989. Lorenzo and Tecchio then formed Non-Fiction. The band’s video for the song “Reason to Live” was featured on MTV’s popular “Headbanger’s Ball" program in the early '90s.

Hades reunited in 1999 and released three albums before parting ways again in 2001. Lorenzo has since released an album with The Cursed, a band he formed with Overkill vocalist Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth, and three solo discs. Hades, meanwhile, has played yearly reunion shows.

The band also has an army of loyal European fans who have not let Hades lie dormant. With fans clamoring to see the group, Lorenzo and his band mates were invited to perform at the prestigious Wacken Festival in Germany in 2000. Hades returned to Germany in 2010 to play the Bang Your Head Festival. The band performed before 30,000 and 12,000 fans at the festivals, respectively.

“It was one of the best experiences of my life, musically,” Lorenzo said of the Bang Your Head show. “Here we are, guys in our 40s, playing in front of all these people. We appreciated it more than ever.”

Lorenzo said that he is grateful for having had the opportunity to be a professional musician, and to be happily married and living in the suburbs. It’s been a long, successful trip from the Paramus Little League fields.

“Life turned out so much better than I ever could have hoped for,” Lorenzo said.

For more information on Dan Lorenzo, visit danlorenzo.net.

The Dan Lorenzo Discography:

Hades

• Resisting Success (1987)
• If at First You Don’t Succeed (1988)
• Live on Location (1991)
• Exist to Resist (1996)
• SaviorSelf (1999)
• The Downside (2000)
• DamNation (2001)

Non-Fiction

• Preface (1991)
• In the Know (1992)
• It’s a Wonderful Lie  (1994)

Solo

• Cassius King (2004)
• Nice Being Alone (2004)
• Cut From a Different Cloth (2005)

The Cursed

• Room Full of Sinners (2007)

DVDs

• Hades Bootlegged in Boston 1988
• Hades Re-United and Re-Ignited: Live at Dingbatz April 2010