by Michael LelloWeekender Editor
It’s a half-hour before Twelve-Twenty Four takes the stage, and the crowd is wrapped around the side of the building. It’s another sold-out crowd, this time in the 350-seat parish hall at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Pittston. The NEPA-based recreation of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has been operating for eight years, and it’s more popular than ever, with shows at B.B. King’s in New York City, two shows at the Sellersville Theater in one day — one of them a sell-out — and an upcoming performance at the Scranton Cultural Center.
“Everybody loves Christmas,” Twelve-Twenty Four musical director and guitarist Lenny Kucinski explains before he leads the band through a soundcheck, including TSO’s symphonic rock mainstay “Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo 12/24.” “It’s like a universal language. It’s something that’s a family show, but you don’t have to be a family to come to it.”
Kucinski notes that everyone from “rockers with piercings, long hair and concert T-shirts, to 3-year-old kids, to people in suits” come out to Twelve-Twenty Four shows.
It’s a large-scale show they’re seeing, with 17 performers, seven crew members and two trucks. The band is now working with a manager, too.
The growing scale of Twelve-Twenty Four has coincided with the addition of Maxx, a former member of the actual Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Kucinski jokes that it’s a bit like the movie “Rock Star,” in which a tribute band singer joins the real-deal band, but in reverse. For Maxx, though, playing with Twelve-Twenty Four is a serious matter.
While touring with TSO West (TSO keeps two touring outfits on the road), a fan told Maxx and some bandmates about Twelve-Twenty Four, joking that the group from NEPA might steal their jobs. After a show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Maxx and the others watched some Twelve-Twenty Four video. And it made quite an impression.
“I was so impressed,” Maxx says. “I said, ‘I know how hard this music is to play, and I want to tell them that.’”
So Maxx called Twelve-Twenty Four drummer Richie Kossuth at Kossuth’s Rock Street Music in Pittston, leaving him a message to call “Maxx from TSO.” Kossuth wasn’t sure what was going on, but he returned the call, and the seeds of a fruitful musical relationship were planted. Kossuth visited Maxx and his wife in their New York City apartment, and, Maxx says, “We found out we were kindred spirits.”
Maxx immediately wanted to work with Twelve-Twenty Four, but the band was already deep into its seasonal gigs.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if our paths could cross one day and we could do a show?” Maxx remembers telling Kossuth.
TO THE MAXX
Maxx decided he wanted to be on the East Coast this year, so he gave Kossuth a call. The time was right to bring Maxx on board. And while you might expect some rock-star attitude from a man who wrote material on TSO’s platinum albums, sang on Broadway and has numerous acting, dancing and writing credits to his name, the animated and charismatic Maxx seems more excited than anyone at the church before the show. Asked to compare his time with TSO to his current gig, he answers enthusiastically.
“There’s no comparison,” he says. “That’s a job. This is love.”
With Maxx in the fold and Twelve-Twenty Four landing bigger shows in front of bigger crowds, the vibe around the band hasn’t become corporate. The members joke around before they’re about to take the stage, and there’s lots of smiles and good cheer to go around.
“We always wanted to go further than we were,” Kossuth says. “We started as a very serious, fun project, if that makes sense.”
Both of those aspects — seriousness and fun — still run through the band nearly a decade into its existence. And the recognition for Twelve-Twenty Four continues to grow.
“Lenny and I went to see (TSO guitarist) Chris Caffery,” Twelve-Twenty Four keyboardist/vocalist Jason Santos recalls. “And we told him we were with a TSO tribute band. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, Twelve-Twenty Four.’”
MORE THAN A TRIBUTE
Twelve-Twenty Four doesn’t consider itself a tribute band in the traditional sense, instead preferring to be known as “recreation” of the TSO, or providing the TSO “experience.” Twelve-Twenty Four’s show is comprised entirely of TSO’s Christmas songs, so the show is a bit different than TSO’s current tour in support of “Night Castle,” a new album that features only one Christmas song, “Nut Rocker.”
Twelve-Twenty Four is also preparing new interpretations of classic Christmas songs, including “Little Drummer Boy,” that it plans to debut next year. As Maxx puts it, “We are the Christmas band.”
Twelve-Twenty Four is doing something it hasn’t done ever before, as well: working on original material. After the holiday season, the band hopes to begin recording.
“Our post-holiday thing is more in the vein of Nickelback and Creed, with an urban feel,” Maxx says, citing Kossuth’s ability to drum in the New Jack Swing style as a reason for starting that project.
The original project doesn’t have a name yet.
“Tell your readers to send us a name, we might use it!” Maxx says.
For now, though, the name of the game is Twelve-Twenty Four, which recently made its Mount Airy Casino debut and has dates scheduled at school auditoriums, the 1,600-seat Clemens Center in Norwich, N.Y., and the Scranton Cultural Center on Saturday, Dec. 26.
Kucinski says every year fans have told him that the band has improved. But this year, the reaction has gone beyond that.
“No one is saying this year that it’s a little better,” he says. “This year, it’s another level.”
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