In 1984, Mike Clayberg, was sitting on the basement stairs of Don Zientara's famed Inner Ear Studio in Arlington, Virginia, discussing a merger of genres with his band's guitar player, John Cobbett. Both members of Malefice agreed that the only thing more awesome than the band's combination of punk's raw energy with the double-bass thunder of speed metal would be the addition of bluegrass. Specifically, Scruggs-style banjo. However, neither man knew any banjo players and thus the idea was lost. Temporarily.

Fast-forward to the late 1990s. One's late thirties are a different era than one's early twenties and the lust for pure primal speed for its own sake is soon replaced by the poignant realities an adult's life offers. Mike had a house filled with children and dogs and a mortgage and a minivan ... and a marriage that was faltering. When Real Life begins to resemble a country song, Mike reasoned, "It's time to start a country band." The first two attempts were false starts that still incorporated the massive sonic architecture of rock and roll. The music was thematically country, but the Marshalls were just plain wrong.

The final attempt incorporated five employees of a software firm. Left brain meet right brain. The singers were superb, the harmony vocals were stellar, but Old Man Rock still roared and wailed and gnashed his terrible teeth and just generally interfered. In late 2003, Dead Men's Hollow unplugged everything, took it out back, and chucked it down the hillside (apologies to Chuck Brodsky) and the magic was finally made real.

Mike grew up on music. His parents were musicians and he spent his childhood in a home rich with Western music from plainchant to chamber to symphonic to opera. Mike listened to The Beatles. He was raised on church choirs from chapels to cathedrals. Mike listened to Kiss. His father composed liturgical music on the piano at home. Mike listened to AC/DC. But above all, he spent long childhood summers in Alabama where radio was either country preachers or country music. He may have listened to Ted Nugent but he also listened to the radio, especially at night when the AM signals came in strong carrying haunting voices singing ageless songs. Curses. If one's ancestors have tramped the rocky New England coasts and southern mountains and Tennessee foothills and western prairies to the wide Pacific shore, traditional American music is woven into one's DNA and soul.

Mike studies guitar under Karl Straub and is learning the language of Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, Norman Blake, John Hurt, and occasionally, Clarence White. He is also inhaling and exhaling a whole mess of fiddle tunes. Mike plays a Martin D28 and Johnson Tricone for Dead Men's Hollow and ever more often can be found singing harmony. Mike plays an assortment of other stringed instruments from baroque to modern and is currently teaching himself clawhammer-style banjo. Banjo. That old idea may yet be resurrected someday. Well, maybe. It'd be different now.