bandbiography
persona non grata
ENTERTAINING UTAH SINCE 1991
BAND HISTORY:
It all started on a hot Summer day in 1991 when Timo Mostert and Darren Rollins met while repainting picnic tables at a community service project in Murray, Utah and found they had a common interest in music. A week later, they saw each other at a local dance and started discussing how fun it would be to start a band. Darren was learning bass and had years of experience singing, while Timo had played guitar solo and in bands for 10 years. They grabbed Darren's future brother-in-law, Travis Cardwell, to play drums and started practicing in Darren's basement. Their first gig, under the moniker Cosmic Pilgrim, was a Thanksgiving Party in November of 1991. After a few more months of serious practice, they changed the band's name to persona non grata and started playing dances, wedding receptions, clubs and parties around the Salt Lake Valley. The band played original songs written by Timo and Darren, as well as an eclectic mix of covers: 50's rockabilly, 60's British invasion and garage rock, 70's punk , 80's new wave, plus any new music that they had heard or seen that was cool and interesting. When Travis left in 1995 to concentrate on work and family, Timo and Darren kept the band going with a series of good buddies filling in on drums. Today, the skins are bashed by local legend Jamie Dalton. persona non grata keeps on entertaining crowds at local festivals, high schools and parties throughout the Salt Lake and Utah Valleys.
BAND BIOGRAPHIES:
TIMO MOSTERT (GUITARS, VOCALS)
Timo bought his first guitar, a 1966 Hagstrom I, in 1982 from a buddy while going to college in Illinois. A year later he got his first taste of stage adrenaline playing guitar in Champaign, Illinois in a Punk/Garage band called The Trouble Boys . After playing solo for a few years, in 1988 he joined a 50's/60's cover band in Provo, Utah called the Backstreet Boys which promptly changed their name to Overboard on account of the nine members in the band: 3 guitars, 3 saxaphones, keyboards, bass, and drums. In 1991, he met Darren Rollins and started persona non grata. Timo includes Pete Townsend, Johnny Thunders, Johnny Ramone, and Warner Hodges as his guitar influences. His guitars include his retired Hagstrom, a Conn ES-335 copy, a Rickenbacker 330, a Gretsch Electromatic and an Epiphone Double-Neck. He also plays a Tanara acoustic-electric and a 1970 Buck Owens American acoustic and Hohner harmonicas. Beside playing in persona non grata, Timo enjoys his side projects: a rockabilly band called Psychobilly Cadillac, and a garage band called Teenage Lobotomy . Timo especially likes playing for young crowds to let them know that you can have a ton of fun playing music without living a destructive rock and roll lifestyle.
DARREN ROLLINS (BASS, LEAD VOCALS)
DARREN'S BIO COMING SOON
JAMIE DALTON (DRUMS)
JAMIE'S BIO COMING SOON
