SUN CITY – If there’s one thing TR Kerth of N. 17 never imagined in his younger years, it’s that he would be in a garage band at 62.
Back Row: (left to right) Gary Ross, Bob Noble, Hans Stucki. Front Row: (left to right) Rich Wolter and TR Kerth. (Photo provided)
“Back when we were rockin’ and rollin’ when we were 16 years old, it was unthinkable that anybody who was 60 would be rockin’ and rollin’,” Kerth said. “But you look at right now, the hottest tickets anywhere are people [musicians] older than I am.”
Kerth referenced Paul McCartney, John Fogerty, B.B. King, and Eric Clapton, among others.
“All these people are big, hot tickets out there right now,” Kerth said. “So, I guess I never expected that [to be in a garage band] to happen, but I’m glad it has. I’m having more fun now playing music than I think I ever did.”
Kerth played in a band for a number of years when he lived in Schaumburg but knew that it would be tough to keep its members together, most of whom lived in Chicago, when he retired to Sun City six years ago.
“Part of my goal was to find some people out here who could play,” Kerth said. “[And] One by one, we kind of found people to be in the band.”
By late 2007, Kerth had fully assembled Old’s Cool, which is comprised of Sun City resident Hans Stucki of N.17 on keyboards, Sun City resident Bob Noble of N.17 on bass guitar, Rich Wolter of Arlington Heights on lead guitar, Gary Ross of Marengo on drums, and Kerth on harmonica, guitar, and vocals.
The band’s crafty name, Old’s Cool, Kerth admitted, was not crafted by him.
“I wish I could claim it. It was my idea that the band be called that, but I wasn’t original to it,” Kerth said.
Rather, Kerth’s daughter found it several years ago printed on a T-shirt being sold by a vendor after a Grateful Dead concert. As Kerth is a former teacher at Maine South High School in Park Ridge, the play on words Old’s Cool was very suiting.
“She [my daughter] swam upstream against this river of humanity to get to this shirt. It’s worn to a frazzle now,” Kerth said, and mentioned that the name “…right away tells what kind of music we play and what our philosophy is.”
Old’s Cool plays a number of venues each year, including the popular Pub Nights in Sun City. Kerth said that the range of ages that enjoy themselves at their concerts amazes him.
“We expect to be well received in places like Sun City. [What we perform] was their [the residents’] music,” he said. “But it amazes us when we go out and play other places where the people are 30 years old and they love it.”
