Born and raised in Mt. Clemons, MI, Poff became interested in music when The Beatles first came onto the scene in ‘64 and before he knew it, he began to play the guitar like most kids did during that time. Growing up in a Military family, Poff and his family moved to Tampa where he would quickly emerge himself in music and meet his future band mates. Traveling to Nashville, the boys would go on to record an incredibly heavy single and the rest is history! Enjoy!

When and where were you born? Are you originally from Tampa, FL? What was growing up like for you?

I was born in Mt. Clemons, MI at Selfridge AFB on the 24th of Sept, 1954. Dad was in the Air Force. I am the oldest of six siblings. We Moved around a bit then settled in New Albany Indiana until 1963. We moved to Tampa in July right before Kennedy was assassinated. We were a typical church going, Leave it to Beaver, or Brady Bunch type of Family. There were military families around us that were stationed at MacDill AFB. I had friends who had fathers in Vietnam. They came and went every few years. The schools I went to were made up of White and Cuban families.

Nixon’s Busing program didn’t start until I was in High School when the first Blacks were bussed in from East Tampa. Since my high school was already Multi-Cultural, with Military families included, we had virtually no problems with Integration as I recall. I spent my teen years polishing my gold ‘66 Mustang, playing in garage bands, chasing girls and water skiing on Tampa Bay with friends who owned boats. We swam in our lakes with multistory platforms that we could climb and dive from. Try finding one of those today. It was mostly great.

When did you first begin to fall in love with music and what initially fascinated you about it? What instrument(s) did you learn to play?

The Beatles burst on the scene in 64. I remember sitting on the floor with my brother and sisters watching Ed Sullivan when the Beatles came on. That was a life changer. Everyone wanted to wear Beatles shoes, wear stove pipe pants and Paisley shirts with nehru collars. Corduroys and Bell Bottoms became fashionable towards the end of the 60’s. I was in the fifth grade when that happened. Then the Monkees came on TV. The “British Invasion” was in full swing. A friend two years older than me, moved in from Chattanooga, TN to the house right behind ours. He was a champion wrestler and he had a Silvertone guitar with a nice Silvertone Tube amp with speaker. I brought my Dad’s old “Gene Autry” acoustic guitar over to his house and we worked out how to play “Pipeline” by the Chantays.

Bill Ayers playing next to Poff’s 200 watt Silvertone Soild State amp wtith six ten inch. Jensen speakers.

Photo of the group playing a concert for their high school after the record was released. They were featured in the school paper and after that even the teachers wanted to hear them play.

He showed me how to play the bassline and he played the rest. We learned “Walk Don’t Run” by the Ventures on that acoustic guitar. Then I hit a Home Run in Little League. We were down by 8 points and the shock of me hitting that one and only home run rallied my team and we ended up winning the game. Dad was so proud, he took me and the whole family out to the Western Auto Department Store and bought me my first electric guitar. It was an Axe. I mean almost literally you could have sharpened one side and chopped wood with it. I got my next twin pickup guitar from Eckerds Drug Store a South Florida chain, Finally for my 17th birthday Dad bought me a deluxe 1972 Cherry Gibson SG Standard with a Bixby whammy new for about $350.00. I scrounged up $200.00 and bought a 1970 Silverface Bandmaster Reverb Piggy Back Amp, which I still have today. That with a Thomas Wah Wah and a Big Muff Fuzz tone was my main rig thereafter.

The band practicing in the front room of Poff’s house.

What was your town like and what would you and your friends do for fun?

Tampa in the late 60’s and 70’s was a small industrial port town. I lived in a neighborhood called Bay Crest which had canals leading out to Tampa Bay. Our neighborhood was new and was still being built when we moved in. I grew up playing Little League Baseball, water skiing with friends, going to outdoor free concerts that were in several local parks. Tom Petty showed up occasionally with his Band Mudcrutch at a big venue by Tampa International airport called the “Men’s Garden Club” I think it was a dollar or two to get in. Jimi Hendrix showed up there once and so did Mike Pinera from Iron Butterfly though I never saw Hendrix there. Darn!!!

Did you go to many local shows in your area?

Yes, Everyone came through Tampa, or St. Pete during that time.

So many incredible bands came out of Florida back in the day! Where would you go to see concerts and what was the first band you saw that made a big impact on you?

My first Concert was in 1968, Jimi Hendrix played at Curtis Hixon Convention Hall in downtown Tampa right on the Waterfront. Tickets were $5.00. He had three blonde or grey spots in his hair, one on the front and one on each side. He had those cool telephone style guitar cables hooked into his Fuzz Face pedal and Thomas Organ Wah Wah pedal. Later at that Concert Hall I saw Frijid Pink with their Version of House of the Rising Sun Headed up by Steam ( Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Goodbye. ) At the Tampa Armory I saw Steppenwolf. Then in the St. Pete Coliseum there was Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull right after their release of the Aqualung album, (They were horrible but everyone loved them because of that album).

I saw Black Sabbath play there too. I had taken some bad “pill” that didn’t do anything, but make me sick. Then at Tampa Stadium I saw Led Zeppelin at their historic biggest concert of 70,000 fans that filled up the whole stadium. Their sound system was horribly deficient for that venue. I saw Pink Floyd right after Dark Side of the Moon. They had a quad sound system that had the laughing giant running around the stadium. I saw the Doobie Brothers there too. Both were beautifully done concerts using half the stadium and great sound systems.

Did you participate in any groups prior to playing together on the single? Tom, you mentioned in our correspondence that you played with a guy that’s from Chattanooga in ‘68. Can you tell me about that? What style of music did you guys play?

Yes, the first band was the Psychodynamic Movement with my buddy Mark Finney from Chattanooga. We had his little 8 Silvertone amp with the 8 inch speaker. Two guitars and a Shure SM 58 Microphone all plugged into one amp. Our Drummer had a beautiful Blue Sparkle Ludwig drum set with Zildjan symbols that drowned out everything. We sang Gloria, Little Black Egg, Words by The Bee Gees, Stepping Stone by the Monkees, and a few songs we wrote. I was around 14, or 15 years old then. Our Tambourine Player’s mom was a no kidding Soap Box actress from New York. She was active on the local theater scene and had a professional photographer come and do a pro photo shoot for us.

I had the thumbnail photo sheet from that for years. No telling where it disappeared to. Next there was a band called “Crossfire” and an iteration of that band called the “Chocolate Orange” with a couple new guys after my buddy and bass player who was in a military family moved away. We played at school dances, church functions, local school fairs, and birthday parties mostly for free or for $25 to $50 dollars for the evening. Then in my junior and senior year of High school I met John Kitko and Wayne Flynt and formed our band Collision. Then we started to play bigger School Concerts, and at clubs. Unfortunately, most of our fans were too young and too poor to go to bars so it was a struggle to fill up clubs, but not free venues outdoor or at the beach.

When and where was your first show and what was that experience like for you?

Well let’s say one of the most memorable was at St. Pete on the pier with a Battle of the Bands Concert. We had a true big time concert size audience. That was a blast. There were a ton of good bands too. It was a dizzying experience and the adrenaline was running high. We also played in the High School Theater for some assemblies where the whole school attended. Prior to that I had several years already of playing at small venues with other bands. After we cut our record, we did a live show at the local radio station in St. Petersburg. We had the amps stacked out in the hallway and John, the drummer in the control room with the rest of us.

We sang a few songs and had a couple of curious girls call in. The DJ mispronounced our name as “Collusion”. He was stoned. We got a free copy of the show tape. My brothers and a few of my friends were wowed because we played a live broadcast out of our local radio station. The Bassist father was a Sears Advertising Rep and he got us a demo concert at the big Sears Store in Tampa. They paid for a free trip for the band to Disney World. We felt like stars because we didn’t have to buy tickets for each ride like you had to do in those days. We had a record out and we could tune in at various times of the day to hear it.

Late bass player David Lester after Bill left the band.

How did you guys all initially meet?

I met John Kitko in school. We both had 66 Mustangs. He had a black convertible with the 289 Cubic Inch engine and I had a gold coupe with an inline six cylinder. We started a conversation and he invited me to meet Wayne. They both lived in Dana Shores, a different neighborhood than I was in. I brought my Amp and guitar over to Wayne’s garage, showed them my chops and they invited me to play with them.

What were your first impressions of each other and what led to the decision to start playing together in the first place?

Well I thought they were pretty cool guys. I came from a big family and was the oldest. Wayne had older brothers. John had an older sister with less kids. Dana Shores was a little nicer neighborhood with larger homes.

What was the chemistry like between everyone?

Initially we got along very well. We started writing and loved the sound we were making. There were several bands among our peers and most thought we were about the best around.

Where would you guys rehearse?

Initially we rehearsed in Wayne’s big garage alongside a beautiful vintage Corvette Stingray Wayne’s dad was working on. We practiced in our Bass players living room after the cops started having to come around and ask us to turn down. I had been used to that for years with my other bands. We practiced a few times in John’s garage and in my living room once. Then we rented a storage garage, and practiced there for a few months. Finally, we rented an abandoned garage out in the country, glued egg cartons all over the wall and set up in a real nice large practice area, where we sometimes brought out girlfriends out to. We had a little carpeted area up in the attic where we could hang out.

When and where was the first gig and what was that experience like for you?

Hard to recall where our first gig was. I had been playing small venues for a while. I recall we played at a Jr. High school that I had attended, where I had a reputation for having a fight with a very popular guy there. Word got out and there was barely enough room to get into the cafeteria-based theater. We put lighter fluid on John’s cymbals and lit them just as the curtains opened. We had fashioned a strobe light with a spinning wheel in front of a closed box where we had a bright light in it. It made a pretty good effect. We also had a colored light tree I think.

How did you guys want to approach music that was different from other bands around that time?

We wrote many of our own songs, but we were all trying to play the popular songs like Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, REO Speedwagon, Deep Purple. Etc.. “Highway Star” was one of my favorite songs to play. John sang that.

How did the deal with Twin Record Production come about?

Twin Records owned by Bill Stith came to town and advertised in local media, I think John’s sister first saw it and told John about it. We went downtown to a hotel room where they had set up interviews. They listened to our demo tape. They weren’t overly impressed but said they would record us if we paid something like $350.00 for the evening up in Nashville. They probably thought we wouldn’t actually go all the way up there but my dad and the Bass players dad offered to drive us, and the other dads loaned some of the money.

Collision during their last months in their studio.

Can you tell me about writing as well as recording the songs ‘Like A Million’ and ‘Indecision’? When did recording start in ‘73 and about how long was that particular process?

After the interview with Twin Records, Bill Stith had said that he wanted to be a performer, but decided his talents were better suited to production. So, I wrote “Like a Million Men” about his experience of writing and singing for himself. John had just moved to Tampa. His Dad was in the Navy so he had to move around a lot. He wrote “Indecision” about the frustrations of having to figure out how to reassimilate in a new town as I believe he mentioned on several occasions. We recorded both songs in one evening starting around 7:00 PM all within about three or four hours.

After a long drive from Macon, GA that morning and a quick dinner at a roadside diner, it was cool being in a real recording studio for the first time. It was a dream come true for me. There was a big tape-based control room with a now vintage analog “Desk”. The recording room had several panels to isolate sound, and a drum set up in the corner. There were carpets on the floor. It was a very comfortable informal and relaxed place. I am pretty sure the address is close to or at 2806 Azalea Place Berry Hill Tn, at the same site where the now famous Blackbird Studios is, right outside of Nashville.

Can you tell me about getting stuck in Macon, GA on the way to Nashville, TN to record the single?

On the 10th of Feb, 1973 We loaded four guys, two dads, all our guitars and suitcases into my dads giant yellow 1972 Dodge Station Wagon. We headed north on I-75 early in the morning just as the sun was rising. The snow started that evening as we hit the Florida Georgia Line. By the time we got to Macon it was time it stop. We pulled over at a roadside Holiday Inn or something like that. The snow just kept on coming. We grabbed a bite somewhere and decided to catch a movie at a local theater right up the road. We were the only ones in the whole theater. My Dad laughed about that for many years after.

The next morning, we headed north again after digging our car out. It was the only lane open. After about an hour we met the train of southbound cars coming south head on in the northbound lane. We were in the front of a long train of cars, so the four teenage boys determined to get to Nashville that night helped push cars that had gotten stuck in the road. By the time we reached Atlanta we were back on dry road. You could tell which cars had come north because many still had a 16-inch pile of snow on top of their car.

John Kitko, Bill, the Bass Player and Myself far right, stuck in Macon GA on the way to record.

The truck the band followed in the storm so Poff’s Dad could see the road.

John Kitko quote: While we were on the road trip, as we got stuck in the snow, I grew 10 feet tall, donned a Hero cape and singlehandedly pushed all the cars stuck in the snow out of the way while the rest of the guys shivered in the car.

Would you mind giving a brief background on both of the songs that are featured on the single?

I played a 1968 or 69 Epiphone Coronet on “Indecision”, because earlier that year my brother or mother knocked my 68 Les Paul Jr., off my amp set up in the bedroom and broke the neck. I took the hotter single coil called a P-90 pickup out of the Les Paul and put it in the Epiphone. My buddy Greg Caminiti still has that guitar which I sold to him for less than $50.00. Today they are supposedly worth about $1400.00. He even recommended the ending to Indecision to stop abruptly like it does halfway down the scale. If my Les Paul Jr, hadn’t been damaged it would have sold for as much as $10,000.00 at the high point. Wayne Flynt played a blonde telecaster through a Big Muff and his Thomas Organ Wah Wah pedal. I think Bill Ayers played a Hofner Violin Bass. John Kitko played the studio drum set, but of course he had brought his own drum sticks.

We plugged into the studio’s amps. I think we only played a couple of passes. I think John re-did the vocals separately listening through the headphones. John Initially wrote the lyrics to the song, then took it over to Wayne’s house on the next street. Wayne put the A, G, A, C chord progression to it and John worked out the vocal melody. When they presented it to me, I recognized it as a familiar type and popular chord progression so it was easy to figure out the riff with the string bend to give it that “Speed demon Blue Cheer guitar riff” sound as characterized on the Popsike.com review under the heading “JOHN KITKO Indecision 1970s UNKNOWN MONSTER HEAVY ACID PSYCH MINDBLOWER 45 HEAR”. It was John’s Powerful vocal performance and Wayne’s blistering lead tracks that give Indecision it’s great energy. It is what makes it an enduring song of sorts in its own right. I am just glad that I was able to be a part of it. In that same review the author pans the other folk-rock song that I sang, I am ok with it because we have a number of easier listening fans who likes that side too.

Tom Poff / John Kitko - Like A Million / Indecision. Twin Records Production circa: 1973.

Tom’s personal copy of the record framed.

For “Like a Million Men”, I had to sing and play at the same time in order to get the timing. They set up a beautiful Neumann U-47 in front of the booth about three feet away from me as I recall. I had never seen such a microphone. I asked about it and they just said it was a special microphone for recording this type of acoustic music. Today one of those vintage microphones goes for $10,000.00 and up if you can find one in good condition. Most have been meticulously maintained and are still found in all the great studios. I played their studio nylon string classic guitar because the engineers thought it would sound better than my electric. He called it a “Gut String” That was the first time I had heard that term. It was because initially they made the strings out of animal intestine. The chief engineer then overlayed a fancier picking track to spruce it up a bit.

I recorded a second harmony vocal overlay, but you can barely hear it in the record. I played one time through and the engineer said “Ok let’s do another take”. I said “Why”? I felt that doing the song the first time through I could feel my way through the song with the freshest interpretation. After that, I was just parroting the song without the initial emotion. Anyway, I did another take but I have no idea which one they used. My guess is that the engineer wanted just to get the levels on the first take and then ride the faders or levels on the next for better engineering. It was a Nashville recording studio so I guess they were used to doing more country western than Rock in those days. Our goal was to try and showcase our ability to do both Hard Rock and Easy Listening Folk Rock on one record.

John Kitko recording Indecision in Nashville circa: 1972.

After the record was released in ‘73, did you guys play any shows together? If so, what gigs stand out in your mind the most from that period?

Of course, we did. That’s when our band Collision hit its stride. I was still a senior in High School. We continued to play local venues around town. We did the Battle of the Bands mentioned above and the Sears show, with a couple of large High School auditorium shows. Those were memorable because many of our friends were able to see us perform in a big venue.

What eventually happened after ‘73? Did you guys continue to pursue music afterwards?

In late 1973 My family added another sibling totaling six, so I lost my own “first born” bedroom and couldn’t practice like I wanted. I had to keep quiet because of the newborn. Wayne wanted to do more double leads but I was having a harder time keeping up, plus I was thinking about college. I ended up moving out of town. John and Wayne reformed and played in several other band iterations and eventually went their own way musically. They remained in Tampa and stayed close friends. Today in 2021 They still work together at John’s business. Wayne played continuously in bands all his life. He still has a group that plays around town. John sings in church as of today. I joined the Navy after College and became a Naval Aviator. I played in groups in the USS Ranger and USS Midway Aircraft Carriers and in church.

I ran a project Recording studio in San Diego called “Rare Air Recording” for a number of years and made lots of private studio recordings for several groups, artists and friends. I even travelled to Cairo Egypt three times to record the Cairo American College vocal ensemble. I still have a lot of musical gear and recording equipment. My large family is very musical and when we get together for the holidays, we usually have a multi-instrumental sing along with around 25 family members of all ages playing mandolin, fiddle, flute, harmonica, and keyboards. We lost touch with Bill the bass player not long after making the record. They ended up having “musical differences”. It is a shame because he wasn’t a bad bass player and his dad, an advertising executive would have gotten us some more recording opportunities, but that’s the way the “Bass Player Bounces”.

The whole band together. Look at that stage!

Outside the venue of a concert we played. Just the gathering crowd.

Are you still in contact with each other? What have you been up to in recent years?

The guys and I still get together for dinner and reminiscing when I am in Tampa. We have even made several personal recordings in my studio over the past decade. We have held jam sessions at our friend Greg’s home on numerous occasions for holiday parties and such.

Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

It was music that first brought us together and that has run like a blood vein through us all our lives. It still does today. The popular music of the 60’s and 70’s with the raucous and then new electric amplified guitar sounds crunched by fuzz boxes and Wah Wah pedals was a special time that may never be repeated. There were no computers or cell phones. The world seemed like a much bigger place then. The Middle East and China may as well have been on the moon. American and British music drove both fashion and culture. My generation could get together in large groups to hear music and no one ever got hurt by crowds rushing the stage. We were chill. Teens, were focused on the next record that was coming out. We drooled over our guitars and amps, cars and girlfriends. It was a good time to be a young American. We made our record before terms like Acid Rock, and Heavy Metal were coined. It was all and still just Rock and Roll to me. Today it is like icing on the cake that our song Indecision has drawn some interest with the Hard Rockers of today. The ride continues. Thanks for listening.