About
Bleak Sabbath is a Black Sabbath/Ozzy/Dio cover tribute band from the Twin Cities area.
Performing the most memorable and deep tracks from these legends.
Bio's
Duchess of Darkness
(a.k.a. Amie Kivisto)
I’ve been singing for long as I can remember. As a kid, Saturday nights were spent listening to my Dad blast The Stones, Hendrix, and The Doors on the stereo while we sang along. I sang in choir in my teens, and in various blues and rock bands until my mid 30’s. Which included singing backups for an Elvis impersonator! I took about a 15 year break due to life happening... Then a friend reached out to me and asked if I may be interested in singing lead with her. It took a bit, but I got my groove back, and now, here I am and having the time of my life!!!
I first heard Sabbath when I was 11 years old. It was on my best friend’s dad’s reel to reel. It sounded so dark and heavy... I was immediately hooked! I was wearing out multiple cassette tapes as I listened to them over and over, again and again. (Master of Reality has always been my favorite... But I also love so many others as well.) Solo Ozzy, Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio, and solo Dio has always been my mainstays.
I was super stoked to join Bleak Sabbath! I get to do what I love most (sing my heart out!!!) AND do it performing music I’ve been listening to for most of my life... Win!!!
Life is short... have fun and try new adventures and live it up!
Iommic PenSameter
(a.k.a. Sam Rhode)
Some years back I saw a shirt that read “Black Sabbath Ruined My Life.” When I was 6, my Dad introduced me to Paranoid. It had songs about killer robots killer pigs and electrified funerals. I wasn’t sure what that meant but I figured it had to be better than a regular funeral. In any event, I was hooked, first by the sci-fi lyrics but ultimately by the riffs that seemed to tower over everything else I’d known of music up to that point.
Fast forward to age 14, I get my first guitar (SG knockoff nonetheless), my teacher shows me the power chord, and the mighty “Iron Man” riff issues from mine own fingers. Life ruined: what could have been a respectable career in accounting or animal husbandry ended up an existence spent obsessed with guitar and all things heavy. I played in cover bands in high school and college, then moved to Minneapolis from nowhere South Dakota looking for a real scene. I found one and have been here since, playing in original bands like Sirens Of Titan, Living Through Ghosts, Magneto Effect, and Megonia. Now I’ve come full circle, the student has become…well, if not the master, at least competent. And I find myself in Bleak Sabbath playing the songs that got me started. And familiar as they are, they’ve lost none of their potency. Life ruined indeed.
Old Geezer Butler
(a.k.a. Pico, The Bass Demon)
(a.k.a. Darrin Gordon)
I have been into music most of his life. I played rhythm guitar for a number of years early in my “Rock Band” ventures and started playing the bass guitar just to fill an empty position one day. I fell madly in love with it and have filled this position for more than 3 decades now. I have been a huge fan of Black Sabbath ever since I first heard Iron Man when I was a youngster. It gave me an appreciation and love for the dark melodic tones of the early metal bands and highly influenced my style of playing. When I received the opportunity to join up with Bleak Sabbath, I jumped at it and have loved every minute of being able to enjoy one of my most favorite bands from the musicians perspective!
Ed-Ward-O
(a.k.a. Robert Luna)
As a young kid looking at changing instruments from guitar to drums, there was no other drummer I listened to more than Bill Ward of Black Sabbath. Later Neil Peart would probably equally share my interest but Ward was first. Even in the last few years before I joined up with Bleak Sabbath, Black Sabbath has always remained in rotation in my playlists. I studied Bill Ward’s feel on the drum kit. I knew it didn’t sound like anyone else’s style. I also listened to a lot of Kansas, Rush and Judas Priest back in the day, but there was something about playing in the style that Ward played that stuck. He was the Ringo Starr of early Heavy Metal and I’ve been hooked ever since. It doesn’t surprise me that even so late in my drumming career that I would finally be in a Black Sabbath tribute/cover band. Hope you dig the music and my homage to a great drummer. Glad to be here.