Dara Cassidy has been fronting her hugely popular cover band The Dirty 3rds for nine years. That’s pretty good for someone who only thought she would be singing two or three songs nightly in a short lived house band.
“I was a little bit nervous,” she said. “Once I got on stage and started doing my thing, I fell into character and to do anything less than being an entertainer would be like I was doing something wrong out there. I guess some people might look at what I do when I’m jumping around and being silly and think ‘I couldn’t do that. I’d be too embarrassed.’ But if I wasn’t doing that, I’d be embarrassed. I want to move. I want to dance.”
It was September of 2003. Cassidy was bartending at the Hen House in Newton, New Hampshire. The owner wanted to begin a house band. Cassidy, who was doing karaoke at the time, was dreaming of being in a band. “They said they wanted a piano, and I said, ‘Well, I play piano,’ which is a little bit of an embellishment.,” she said. “I played when I was younger. I took lessons when I was five.”
Her bluff lead to her buying a keyboard and forming a combo with a drummer and two singers. This group’s first gig fell on Cassidy’s birthday, and it turned out to be the biggest present she ever received, even if that wasn’t immediately apparent. “I was walking around telling everybody I was in a band,” she said.
At the time, Cassidy’s only objective was to help the owner bring customers into the bar. “I was very green,” Cassidy said. “I liked performing, and I liked watching bands, but I couldn’t imagine an actual band would be something I could really do.”
Cassidy and her band mates eventually formed a business plan for their band, got beyond the Hen House, and took it a little bit further, once they knew where they could play. Cassidy’s father used to play harmonica with their band. When he passed away, the Dirty 3rds performed a benefit to pay for his funeral expenses at Bevie B’s on Salisbury Beach. The owner was so favorably impressed that she asked Cassidy and her band to play every Sunday afternoon. “We jumped all over getting the gig just to get exposure and experience,” she said. “The rest is history.”
Although the band’s name was Dirty 3rds from the beginning, they changed it a few times along the way because they had a booking agent who thought it was inappropriate. “I don’t find it offensive,” Cassidy said. “I find it funny. I have a major in marketing. So, whatever is going to make people remember the name, is what I want to keep it as. It’s something that other bands don’t have. I think it’s a little bit different. Yes, it’s a little on the edgier side. It was a little uncomfortable to tell my grandparents what the name of the band was. Other than that, I‘m proud of it.”
Cassidy was never in previous any bands, only singing in karaoke bars and performing the national anthem for the basketball and hockey games at her high school. It was hard for her to sing and play along to rock songs growing up because her piano lessons forced her to play mostly classical music. “It’s a lot different than rock and roll,” she said. “I don’t have that rock and roll piano sound. I fill in pieces where I can. For me, when I’m on stage, it’s really being in the front. That’s where my home is.”
Cassidy believes her Dirty 3rds have lasted these nine busy years through hard work. While some people may have moments of doubt during the economic turmoil and club closings, the singer feels it is always worth the effort. She also hosts a karaoke gig and a side project band named 4 Pete Sake and takes dance lessons on top of a full time job.
“The bands are not work to me,” she said. “It’s work, but I like to do it, marketing online, going to clubs with fliers, meeting new people. That’s not work to me. That’s what I love doing. The secret is that it isn’t work.”
The biggest high Cassidy receives from fronting Dirty 3rds is seeing the crowd reactions and responses. “I try to play to every room, whether there’s seven people or 700 people,” she said. “I try to perform the same. When the crowd is responding back to me, and they are up and dancing, singing along, smiling and just having fun, and we get off stage, and they’re saying awesome things about us, that’s what really does it for me.”
Seeing her band’s entertainment value in the audiences’ action is far more rewarding than just a kind word. “If they’re just sitting there, and they come up and go, ‘Oh, you guys are great’ and I’m thinking, ‘Hmm, you don’t look like you’re enjoying it’. But when they’re dancing and laughing and having a good time, and coming back to shows after shows, and becoming friends with us, that’s really awesome.”
Cassidy and her fiancé, drummer Rick Lister, are the two original members. Cassidy does the booking and the marketing. Lister built the website, and the two co-own the band’s equipment. Lister built the portable stage that the Dirty 3rds perform on, including the flashing light that says Dirty 3rds. A carpenter, Lister also built the riser, and the Let’s Get Dirty sign.
It’s a good thing that most of these props are large and hard to forget. Cassidy has an unfortunate habit of leaving things behind at gigs. Hence, the large signs that connect to the stage. “We used to have a banner, but I kept leaving it places,” she said. “So now we have these boxes and we can’t forget them. They’re much bigger.”
When asked how she used to forget to bring home huge banners that hung over the stage all night, she pleaded guilty to spacing out. “I leave things everywhere,” she said. A bar bouncer up in Maine once e-mailed her: “To my favorite band member who leaves everything behind. You forgot your laser. Or, you forgot your I-Pod.”
By day, Cassidy works as a marketing development manager for a pharmacy benefits management company that deals with prescriptions. She is also a certified pharmacy technician. Cassidy graduated from University of Massachusetts in Boston with a Bachelor Of Arts in Business Management And Marketing. By night, she has another kind of recruitment duty: she hires the people for her band.
Guitarist Rob Ferraro was the original guitar player from the very first Dirty 3rds show nine years ago. He left the band and came back two years ago. Bass play Mal Chojnowski more recently replaced a previous bass player who didn’t want to travel.
“We try to let everybody pick some songs,” Cassidy said. “Some songs work. Some songs don’t. We try to make it democratic, so that everybody gets a vote because I think that personally, I think that the poppy songs work really well and I know that Rob really likes the 80s metal guitar stuff. So we try to strike a balance that we get things that make everybody happy to play. Ultimately, we have to play the songs that make the crowds happy. But we want to be playing stuff that we like too.”
Songs that don’t go over well at their gigs go onto their “extra list,” on the off chance that someone will request it or in case the Dirty 3rds have to play a longer closing set. At the Brunswick club on Old Orchard Beach, Maine, the Dirty 3rds play to 500 people outside on a summer deck that overlooks the ocean. “When they don’t want them to leave yet, they ask, ‘Can you play some more? Can you play some more?’ Of course, that’s the best time to play is when they’re all pumped up, dancing, and singing along.”
Cassidy can alter her set lists to play to each crowd at each individual establishment, since she’s been playing most of them for a very long time, and she knows those crowds pretty well. “I know that some of the songs that will work really well at The Village Square(Hampstead, New Hampshire), don’t necessarily work as well here(New England Seafood in Methuen, Massachusetts where this interview took place),” she said. “So, you get to know the rooms. You get to know the people. And sometimes it’s just a crapshoot. You just got to try it. Some nights they work. Some night they’ don’t. We try to have a really eclectic mix, lot of different things. If you don’t like one song, maybe you’ll like the next because we go from Lady Gaga to Zeppelin.”
Dirty 3rds do not exclude any age groups. They don’t aim for over 30 or under 30. Because they’ve been around for a while, it’s often a family event in which their middle aged fans bring their young adult children. “We want to hit all over the map, age-wise,” she said.
She also said there are fans that might contradict stereotypes. “It’s surprising how poppy some of the biker bars like the music,” she said. “We were at a biker bar one time. There was a really big, big guy and he looked all scary. We played ‘Love Shack’ and he jammed out to it.”
In fact, Cassidy has an affinity for biker bars. “I think that the people are more real. I think they’re more honest, and there’s less pretensions,” she said. “There’s some of them that are tough, and some of the places seem tough, but when you actually talk to the people, it’s a lot less scary. There’s a lot of heart in biker bars. Maybe that’s because my dad was a biker. My uncle’s a biker.” Cassidy said she is not a biker because her mom was a biker when she was pregnant with her and she gave up her motorcycle so Cassidy wouldn’t get one. “She gave up her motorcycle license when she got pregnant with me,” she said.
Tailoring her set list to each room does remain important. If she knows it’s going to be a younger crowd, then she will put in some of the younger songs. “We play Ri Ra in Portsmouth. I make sure I get all the pop songs in there,” she said. “When we play Village Square, it leans toward ‘Mustang Sally,’ ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful.’ Journey pretty much works everywhere, all ages.”
The Dirty 3rds have built up a following over the course of nine years, no small feat in these days of a struggling music scene and numerous club closings. “I think it’s hard for every band,” she said. “I think everybody struggles to get a group of people who are going to follow you every weekend. We do this for fun, but we also do it as a business. It’s hard to get the same people to come out because they’re spending their own money. I think that having the nine years behind us gives the name that makes us recognizable when it’s on a club wall.”
Cassidy’s marketing plan includes the band’s website, but Facebook too gives her a lot of help in getting the word out. “Just getting the name out there, posting pictures, getting people involved with the groups that Dirty 3rds are involved in,” she said. “A lot of the band are out to make themselves better, of course. And they seem like they’re always in competition. I mean nobody in particular, but that’s how I always felt people were acting, and I feel like that hurts” the scene.
Cassidy believes in rebuilding the music scene into one in which bands support each other rather than work against each other. “I’ve made friends with a lot of people in a lot of different bands,” she said. “Some of my best friends are in other bands. I’m a big proponent of supporting other bands. I can’t play every bar every night, so if I like your band, I’m going to promote you to the owner of this bar that I’m playing at so you can play there too. If you get better bands in the bars all the time, you’re going to get better crowds all the time, in certain places.”
Green in the beginning, Cassidy had no idea that bands changed players as often as they do. “I said something like ‘We’re going to all be friends forever’ and then two months later we were already going through members.” When looking to hire the right players for her band, Cassidy considers those who fit style wise and those who fit on the personality level. “We all go out to Kowloon’s and we go bowling,” she said. “We hang out outside of the band, and I think that strengthens our chemistry on stage.”
Currently, Cassidy’s band mates bring a lot to the table. “Rob keeps us into the rock. Sometimes we were getting too caught up in the Top 40 and the pop,” she said. “He says, ‘Hey, what about this rock song? Dirty 3rds are a rock band. We’ve got to stick with that.’”
Because he plays lead guitar and sings back up, Ferraro provides an alternate focal point for the audience. “Without sounding too snotty because I’m a lead singer, but I think those are the two focal points in a band, the lead singer and the lead guitarist. They have to be strong. I know that’s what I do when I see a band. I’ll see the other people; I’ll notice the drummer and the bass player, but those are the two focal points for me.”
Bass player Mal Chojnowski brings a ton of energy to the stage. His girlfriend once advised Cassidy what to do when he gets to be too much. But to Cassidy, there’s no such thing as a player who is “too much.” In fact, Cassidy will have a friendly competition with the bass man to see which one of them can be more lively. “Sometimes, when I feel myself lagging at all, I’ll look over at him and think ‘he’s not going to out shine me. He’s not going to out energy me.”
Cassidy has no hang ups about occasionally relinquishing her front person microphone to play her keyboard while Chojnowski handles lead vocals on a few numbers. “I think it makes for a well-rounded band,” the singer said. “I sing a lot of songs, and I don’t want anybody to get sick of my voice, hearing it all night. I want to have the aspect of having a male singer, having somebody else singing. It’s fun to play the piano sometimes. I do it better when I’m not singing the lead. I can’t be up front and playing the piano. I haven’t found a keytar that would look good with any of my outfits.”
Drummer Rick Lister takes care of sound and lights as well as set construction. “All of the lights are DMX controlled,” Cassidy said. “A lot of the show was built by him. And even though the leader responsibilities fall between me and him, when it comes to things that need to be said, I might sugarcoat things a little too much. But when something tough has to be said, he can handle that.”
Cassidy has herself a couple of side projects. One is a weekly band Karaoke hosting gig, a job she’s had for over two years. Her move into this slot came about through a chance at one of her regular rooms. She hosted one at New England Seafood, since she was always there attending. She organized it and started the marketing and had a lot of fun meeting a lot of people and a lot of musicians. That band includes guitarist George Bisson, bassist Pete Cam, and drummer Steve Brodowski.
“I feel like I can stretch my legs a little bit more so that I’m not just with the Dirty 3rds,” she said. “It’s fun for me to be able to show that I can do more too. It‘s taught me a lot about harmonies, since I‘m singing a lot of back ups.”
Cassidy has seen some singers at Karaoke go from nervous novices to starting their own bands. It’s all part of her mission to enhance the music scene, more bands, more friends. The Karaoke gig has also created a spin off second band side project for Cassidy, 4 Pete Sake, with bassist Pete Cam, Cam’s brother Chris Camaratta on drums, and guitarist George Bisson. “As of right now, it’s sort of like a house band at Uncle Eddies. We’re playing there every other Sunday night,” she said.
Cassidy had actually been a performer of sorts even long before she became a working singer. She was a cheerleader in high school, and she’s been a dancer with a recital school for 15 years. She trains at Dance Designs in Plaistow, New Hampshire. “She’s been open for over 20 years,” Cassidy said. “I started with her her first year when I was 11. In a couple weeks, it will be my 15th recital with her.”
Cassidy doesn’t choreograph her stage moves as much as she goes with the flow. But you can see she’s a dancer. She likes to vary her steps, as she mimes out the words a little. “There’s definitely times I catch myself doing the same moves, especially when I look out in the crowd, and I see a regular person that’s always at the shows, and they’re doing the same moves at the same time, and I’m like ‘I guess I do that too much.’”
Cassidy looks very much like a rock star on stage, with her outfits changing per show. She loves clothes and confesses to a bit of a shopping addiction. “It doesn’t help that I know there’s pictures taken,” she said. “I don’t want to be in the same outfit in each gig pictures. It’s really fun for me to dress up. It helps me get into that other personality because I am a business person during the day at work. Then, I have the stage performance me, and the clothes help me get into it.”
The singer was a bit of a performer even before high school cheerleading. Cassidy also took classical piano lessons from age 5 up until she became a cheerleader in high school. She could only go to one activity, lessons or practice, after school. “My piano teacher caught on pretty quickly that I would have him play the song that he’d choose for me so that I could watch him play it and hear him play it. That way I didn’t really have to read music.” In college, Cassidy signed up for a piano class because she missed the ivory keys. When things would get a little too hectic in her dorm, she would go to the piano lab and play and play and play. “It would help me if I was homesick, if I was feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anything.”
Local music fans and others who know Cassidy often puzzle over how she is able to find time and work as hard as she does at all of her music projects. “It makes me feel alive,” she said. Everyone has their ways to decompress. Some people read a book. Some people paint. I like to play music. It’s my release. It’s my stress release. It’s my connection to my dad. I can still feel him through the music. It’s my connection to my friends. It’s what makes me happy, and I’m pretty determined on doing what makes me happy.”
