...To The Age Old Question.  Mommy, What's A Caustic Casanova?

December 2005...


Caustic Casanova is a power trio based in Williamsburg, Virginia, comprised of Michael Wollitz on guitar, keyboard, and vocals; Francis Beringer on bass, harmonica, and vocals; and Stefanie Zaenker on drums and vocals. Yeah, yeah, you knew that. Their debut album Old Habits Die Hard was an international smash hit, both critically and commercially. Okay, okay, you knew that, too. Did you know that their live shows are the most legendary music spectacles of all time? Hmm....so you knew that, too. Fair enough, good for you.

Anyway, despite the average fan's rabid consumption of all things Caustic Casanova, there are still some CC factoids out there that most fans do not know. To that end, causticcasanova.com is pleased to present you the following critical essay detailing the full history of Caustic Casanova and its three members. The piece was meticulously researched and written by Cambridge University scholar, Dr. Simon Lapsetep. It was recently published in the Winter '06 edition of the International Symposium of Music Scholarship (ISMS), the world's preeminent scholarly music journal. We here at the website are honoured to present the essay here in its entirety.

Caustic Casanova: A Study Of Greatness, A Lesson In Genius

By Dr. Simon Lapsetep, Christ's College, Cambridge University

Ed. Note: The author would like to thank the Carnegie Foundation for their generous grant, which made his research possible, the Roman Abramovich family, for their substantial financial support, and his wife Diane, for her everlasting love and support throughout these long years of academic toil and work.

Rare is the band whose songs can be said to define a complete musical generation, let alone an entire nation's culture. Then again, there has never been a band like Caustic Casanova. Comprised of Michael Wollitz on guitar, keyboards, and vocals; Francis Beringer on bass, harmonica, and vocals; and Stefanie Zaenker on drums and vocals; Caustic Casanova stands today as the major iconic figure of American society. What St. George is to England, St. Patrick to Ireland, Caustic Casanova is to America. Their songs are our hymns, their language our vernacular, and their on stage antics our preferred form of gesticulation. Everywhere we go we feel, hear, and see their influence, but just how exactly did this trio of musical giants come together to change the world? In order to answer this question we must not only tell the history of Caustic Casanova, but we must also tell the history of 20th Century music.

It all begins with a friendship. Michael Wollitz and Francis Beringer met during the height of the Great Depression in the American Deep South, two immigrant lads with nothing in common but a love of music and a taste for the blues. Michael was born in Rathgar, a tough part of Dublin, Ireland, and Francis was born on an island in the midst of a majestic fjord in Finland. Upon meeting in America, unable to speak English, they communicated solely through music. One night while practicing at midnight in the local graveyard, Michael on banjo, Francis on harmonica, a handsome stranger in a dark suit approached them, carrying at this side an old guitar. He said that he had often passed them playing on milk crates by dusty street corners, and he had a proposition for them: Teach him how to play the guitar, and he would teach them to speak English. As soon as they understood his gesturing, the pair of young musicians eagerly accepted his offer.

The stranger's name was Robert Johnson, and as soon as he had learned some basic chords the three set out travelling around the Delta playing shows. Robert laid down the rhythm and kept the time, while Francis and Michael dazzled the crowds with their lead licks. The day finally came when the trio was asked to enter a studio to cut some tracks. However, the combo fell apart at this time over an artistic argument. Johnson was tired of the small circuit and its grueling demands; thus, desperate to score a hit, he wanted to change Beringer's song "Sweet Home Helsinki" to "Sweet Home Chicago." Wollitz and Beringer refused to compromise their artistic vision. Instead, they unselfishly let Johnson keep the song, but refused to participate in its lyrical alterations, and the parties split amicably, Johnson with some guitar skills and the boys with a mastery of English.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst at the time to Beringer and Wollitz, the world's greatest drummer, Stefanie Zaenker, was just coming into her own as a musician. Stefanie grew up loving music, and gained immediate attention in the music community for introducing the "China" into American music at the tender age of six. This caught the attention of Buddy Rich and his band, and before she knew it, Stefanie was opening as a solo drum performer for Rich and Co. No one had ever seen anything like it. Dizzy Gillespie summed it up best in a 1940 interview with CBS Radio:

Interviewer: So Dizzy, how's about this new kid that's been opening up for you, Buddy, and the boys?

Gillespie: Oh brother, that cat can play. She is one smooth character. I ain't never heard nobody lay down the beat quite like that. She's working on this new style of drumming, she calls it be-bop. Great name for it I think. It's already caught on at our late night jam sessions over at Minton's Supper Club. Man, I tell you, she's the hippest damn drummer I've ever heard. She puts the be-bop in the skedaddle, bro. Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (unintelligible).

Interviewer: (laughs) Now I bet you mean she's the best next to Buddy, right? Surely you're not insinuating she's better than your longtime friend and jam partner Max Roach?

Gillespie: No way man. She leaves Buddy and Max in the ditch, baby. Brothers are complete tools compared to dat lady. Just between you and me, I've been trying to replace one of those washed up cats with the Z's since the first day I heard her.

Gillespie's words would prove prophetic. His efforts to drop Buddy Rich for Stefanie Zaenker would fail due to band politics, and Zaenker would eventually leave the jazz road show, tired of playing second fiddle to a slew of obviously inferior male drummers who had imitated her signature style for years. Gillespie's bandmate and saxophone god Charlie Parker, who had long been erroneously credited for inventing bebop, was racked with guilt for years. Some say it was a heroin overdose that ended The Bird's life at the tender age of 34, but many believe it was the pain and despair of a forever severed relationship with the world's greatest drummer. For some time Zaenker toured on her own, playing legendary shows in which she would sometimes drum for up to six hours at a time. The only accompaniment she ever permitted was from unknown trumpet virtuoso Lee Morgan, who forever credited her with jumpstarting his career. Her concerts were mesmerizing. One night she was scheduled to play an opening show for a quartet of blues musicians. She played her generous three hour opening set, and when she went offstage she learned that the headlining act's drummer had fallen ill. She was asked to sit in, and she readily agreed. Amazingly enough, as the band clicked immediately, they played a twenty four hour set, the complete show improvised on the spot. The lineup that night: Zaenker on drums, a young unknown named B.B. King on rhythm guitar, and the famous Michael Wollitz on lead with the great Francis Beringer on bass. The band was so impressed with Zaenker's talents that they decided around the twenty first hour of the show to offer were the kit gig permanently. Tragically though, King, Wollitz, and Beringer all fell asleep immediately upon going offstage that night (the next night--it was a twenty four hour show remember), and when they woke up, Stefanie Zaenker was gone. Wollitz and Beringer were crushed, and blamed King for not waking them up in time to stop Zaenker from leaving. They left King to his own devices, derisively saying his guitar sounding like his annoying girlfriend Lucille.

The two men would search in vain for Zaenker for quite some time. Years passed, and Michael and Francis continued to busy themselves with myriad musical projects. They penned the song "Lady Sings The Blues," and gave it to a young singer they liked named Billie Holiday. They took her on the road for some time as their frontwoman. On one of their many tours they met a young man named Elvis Presley. Obviously talented, but referring to himself as "The President," the duo helped him tweak his image. Artists from all around got wind of their remarkable expertise and sought their advice. Johnny Cash brought them "A Girl Named Dave." Aretha Franklin showed them "Dignity" (D-I-G-N-I-T-Y--Why don't you give it a try--Pop it to me, pop it to me). Bob Dylan came to Beringer for harmonica lessons and help on a song called "Like A Sliding Rock." All in all, the years passed smoothly, the tandem playing their beloved music and staying out of the spotlight.

The 1960s would bring their greatest adventures yet. Tired of the grind of touring for thirty consecutive years, Michael and Francis moved to Liverpool, England in the early '60s. One evening, after dining at the local Nando's, they came up with their boldest musical idea yet. Why not take the gritty R & B/soul tones of their beloved early work and spice it up using mophaired British heartthrobs to spread the music to the masses? It would be the perfect experimental odyssey: the band would start out with saccharine tinged, pure pop laced tunes, and per an unprecedented, unmatched career arc, the band's works would become more and more experimental and "out there," until in a blaze of glory, the group would disband at the height of its powers. They agreed it was ambitious but worth a shot. They recruited four charming looking local youths to learn their songs and be their public stand ins. Wollitz then took the pen name "John Lennon," and Beringer took the name "Paul McCartney," and they spent the rest of the decade prolifically penning songs for their "band." The rest is, as usual, history.

As the '60s drew to a close, three major developments involving the future CC were taking place. During his years writing under the pseudonym "John Lennon," Michael Wollitz had also been raising his son Jimi (many have speculated about the mother...musicologists and historiographers are usually divided between the "Billie Holiday" and "Bessie Smith" schools of thought on the issue). Michael and Jimi were nearly inseparable. Wollitz taught his boy everything he knew about the guitar, and by the late '60s he deemed young Jimi proficient enough to step out on his own in the rock world. There was just one stipulation: The boy was not to ride his famous father's coattails. Therefore, Jimi had to take a stage surname. The young guitarist chose the moniker "Hendrix," and you know the rest of the story. Jimi's death in 1970 was a devastating blow for Wollitz. He retreated further than ever from the spotlight, and even abandoned music for quite some time. It would be nearly two decades before his reemergence. His only important music-related activity during this time period would be the bestowing of two very famous nicknames on his Dublin neighbors' kids. He would become like a second father to young Paul Hewson and Dave Evans.

Saddened by the loss of Wollitz's son, and disappointed by the decision to end their Lennon-McCartney songwriting facade, Beringer nonetheless soldiered onward. His next two accomplishments were immense indeed. Bored by the music industry, alarmed by the lack of talent he saw around him, Francis started his legendary vocal school. Armed with a knack for discovering young talent and nurturing it, Beringer's "scream doctoring" changed many a singer's life. One of his earliest pupils, a young man named Gary Lee Weinrib, decided he wanted to sing, too. Only problem was that Geddy's only experience singing was as the front man of a Louis Armstrong cover band in Toronto. Francis quickly told him to stop flipping quarters on the playground with his best friend Alex, stop playing the guitar, and pick up the bass instead. Francis taught him to play the four string, and, more importantly, taught him a new high register singing style.  Emboldened by his new skills and an extra boost of confidence, Gary rushed to form a band with his buddy Alex.  And things worked out all right in the end for those two.

It was around this same time that one of Beringer's prized pupils came to him for advice. Now that Francis had taught him to sing, he wanted to form a band. He had enlisted two of his closest friends, Jimmy and John Paul, to join, but they could not find a drummer. Surely the legendary rhythm man Francis Beringer could suggest someone? In a 1988 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Robert Plant would recall that fateful exchange:

So's I ask him if he had any mates that might want to be a playin' the drums in a rock band. And I'll never forget me that moment: He turned from that blackboard he was always hunched over, and with a sly smile he adjusted his bow tie--he always dressed sharp in the rehearsal studio--and he said to me, he said, "Robert, I don't just have a drummer for you, I have a drummer who will change the sound of rock music forever." I jumped, me I did, and I said, "Who? Who?" And he simply said to me, "Why, the best drummer in the world, Robert: Stefanie Zaenker."

And so Stefanie Zaenker came to be Led Zeppelin's drummer. It had taken years of trying, but Francis Beringer had finally relocated his rhythmic counterpart. Now, the average music fan will at this point probably be crying out "but wasn't John Bonham, greatest drummer of all time, the man behind the kit for the Zep?" you ask. Ah, you have so much to learn. At the time, the last vestiges of Elizabethan English rule were still in place, and therefore women were not allowed on the stage. Men played all the instruments, and men alone performed live rock shows. As a result, in order to play for Led Zeppelin, Stefanie had to disguise herself as a man and take an assumed name. With "John Bonham" holding it down, Zeppelin took off into the stratosphere. Alas, like all good things, it came to an end. As the years passed, Stefanie grew more and more tired of her double life. However, the straw that broke the camels' back was the song "Moby Dick." Originally, the track featured a fifty seven minute drum solo. One night, though, Jimmy Page snuck into the studio and altered the master tapes, slicing the length of the solo by an obscene amount. The band never recovered from Page's crime. They struggled on for a while, but finally in 1980, "Bonham" faked his death, and Zaenker was forever free from the chains of Led Zeppelin.

The '80s and '90s were largely silent years for our three music legends. They were still busy behind the scenes--Beringer invented "stoner rock" and politely gave credit, along with the nickname "Baby Duck," to his beloved godson Joshua Homme, Zaenker beat Lars Ulrich to within an inch of his life in a particularly brutal "double-bass-off," and Wollitz introduced guitar novice Kevin Shields to the tremolo pedal--but they released no new music of their own to the general public.

And so it was, on a clear night in the fall of 2004, that the three old friends came to be sharing a quiet meal at a KFC in rural Saskatchewan, when all of a sudden the ground started to shake, the lights to flicker, and the room to fill with a brilliant light. Everyone but our three heroes was frozen unable to move, when next three figures clothed in radiant white robes stepped into sight. Beringer, Wollitz, and Zaenker stared in amazement. Before them stood the spirits of Miles Davis, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson spoke first. "We three specters have been sent by God to tell you of your destiny. The music world, nay, the entire world, needs you now more than ever. The truth must surely be self-evident to you by now: All men are created equal, but not all musicians." Miles Davis stepped forward. "Yes, indeed," he said. "Therfore you all MUST form a band, a rock trio. It will be the greatest band the world has ever seen, and it will be called Caustic Casanova. Begin writing songs for your debut album, Old Habits Die Hard, now." He paused and turned towards Bach. Bach frowned gravely and paced back and forth, speaking in an animated, urgent tone. However, as he was speaking German, only Zaenker understood him. She nodded seriously, agreeing strongly with him. Then silence fell upon the room, and as quickly as they had come, the ghosts disappeared. The CC grabbed an order of biscuits to go and headed immediately for the studio.

And now you know the rest of the story.