Q&A: Skip Scherer From the Gypsies in the Palace, Hitmen of North Canton

Skip Scherer is about to have a busy weekend, with a big show at Legends Sports Pub & Grille Friday and another at Saturday. We thought we'd get this trumpeter to talk to us about what got him started in music and what he loves about singing to "parrot heads" (Jimmy Buffett followers) one day and being a member of the Hitmen the next.

North Canton Patch: Tell me about the Hitmen of North Canton.

Scherer: The Hitmen (Kent Ramsey, John Arnold, Todd Johnson, Skip Scherer and Jerry Patton) started 10 years ago and are actually made up of five people from North Canton. Our niche is classic rock and big hits. We're starting to kind of branch out from just classics of '70s and '80s to try newer stuff. We are the "hit" men, so we should be playing the hits regardless of what decade they occurred in. We've probably played about 30 different groups' music and we keep adding on.

we'll add about a dozen additions to our lineup, and those songs will be by Queen, Blackfoot, Bob Seger and Ozzy Osborne. We're all over the board with music. The big qualifier for what we play is they have to be pretty big hits.

During the course of the evening we'll hit on songs everybody knows and wants to dance to. We'll attempt to play a song by the Black Eyed Peas.

North Canton Patch: Which song by the Black Eyed Peas?

Scherer: It's going to be a surprise. ... I have a feeling that a lot of people have heard it. We're just trying to figure out which one of us should be Fergie because it's an all-male group.

North Canton Patch: OK, now Gypsies in the Palace?

Scherer: Gypsies started about 15 years ago and is based out of Stow, and that's kind of where most of the members lived when we first got started. It's all Jimmy Buffett and some original tunes in the Jimmy Buffet style. The fun thing about playing our own tunes is people are sometimes scratching their heads trying to figure out what album the song came from.

To be honest I didn't know much about Jimmy Buffett when I first started with the group. Jimmy Buffett's storytelling is fun to explore, plus the crowd always get into the music and lots of "parrot heads" show up. We play with Hawaiian shirts or tropical shirts and a lot of them will wear some kind of headgear as well.

(Gypsies is made up of Ken Renker, Columbus; Dave Hill, Stow; Skip Scherer, North Canton; Bob Hill, Green; Stacy Cline, North Canton; Jeff Neitzke, Cuyahoga Falls.)

North Canton Patch: What's your favorite type of venue?

Scherer: Local sports bars and the local bar scene. We have a pretty loyal following with both of our groups, and that's always nice to see some friendly faces out there. 

The nice thing about the local bars and sports bars is they're smaller, so it's kind of like you're very close to the crowd and can interact with the crowd. And if someone wants to join us on the stage to play the cowbell or the washboard or whatever it might be, they can certainly join us.

North Canton Patch: Why two bands? One wasn't enough?

Scherer: I guess I like the challenge. It's obviously a very big change of gears to go from Jimmy Buffett to Ozzy Osborne. It wouldn't be fun if the people I was playing with weren't good players, but fortunately everyone is. So we can tackle stuff and have fun exploring different styles. Especially with the Hitmen, it's forcing me to try a lot of new things that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to.

With both bands, I think if you close your eyes you can probably imagine the artist up there in front of you. And that's what we're striving for.

North Canton Patch: Is playing in two bands how you make a living?

Scherer: [Laughing] Absolutely not. You can't make a living, I don't think, playing in local bars and stuff. But it's just really a release for me. Having a lot of fun meeting a lot of people who enjoy going out and listening to good music makes it really worthwhile.

For my day job, I'm a public relations consultant and freelance writer. I spent almost 30 years with Goodyear in their public relations department. (Scherer also is retired.)

North Canton Patch: Tell me something about yourself people might not know.

Scherer: I got to play in as many Rose Bowls as Archie Griffin.

North Canton Patch: How'd you get into music?

Scherer: I started picking around on the piano when I was 3 years old. In the fourth grade I picked up a trumpet and I've been playing it ever since. I play the trumpet and sing backup vocals in both bands. I play keyboard and do some lead singing in the Hitmen, too.

North Canton Patch: What did you think you'd end up doing for a career? Being a communications guy, playing in two bands on the side?

Scherer: [Laughing] I majored in communications in college, so that was the direction I wanted to go. And I chose communications over music because I never wanted to make music work. I wanted it to be fun, a hobby and an outlet, the release valve from the work. It kind of worked out that I always wanted to be involved in those two things and I am.

North Canton Patch: Tell me about your family.

Scherer: I have a daughter, Katiann, who graduated from last year. She plays the flute. My other daughter, Katrina, graduates this year from Hoover. She plays the clarinet. My son, Nathan, who's married and living in the Washington, D.C., area, is in the U.S. Navy and played the saxophone. He graduated from Hoover in 2000 and then the Naval Academy in 2004. My wife, Kitty, plays the cello.

North Canton Patch: You probably saw this one coming, but do you and your family members get together and play music?

Scherer: Only at Christmastime, everyone gets their instruments out.

North Canton Patch: What's the strangest thing that's ever happened to you on stage?

Scherer: That I can talk about in public? [Laughs] Well, sometimes the music will get to the audience and they will lose themselves in the music and be dancing, and one person literally fell into my microphone as I was singing into it. So the microphone hit my mouth and the person pretty much spilled onto the stage, and we had to keep performing. So I now got to hold a bent microphone stand while trying to finish up the song.