THE SCRATCH & SNIFF BIO

Scratch and Sniff was created in a round about way but we're sure glad we did it!
Prior to meeting, both of us had quite a few years of playing around town. George kept busy in the 80's with several local acts while Chris was just getting started in high school and college bands.
We met back in the late 80's when we were busy in some working acts. Chris was a lead singer and George was doing the same as well as playing guitar & keyboards. We never exchanged more than a hello or two but that would soon change. By the early 90's both of our bands had folded and we moved on to other projects, mostly writing and recording original material.
About a year later, Chris and George by coincidence had joined the same band. By this time, Chris was playing keyboards and the lead singer was none other than George. Although the band broke up soon after that, Chris and George discovered their love for writing music and started concentrating on writing and recording original material together. We also joined another band just to keep on playing regularly.
It was somewhere around this time we started learning songs as a duo. We'd get together an hour or so before the rest of the guys and bang out a few tunes to see what would happen. It was fun, but due to the busy band schedule, it never developed. Then in the fall of 1995 Chris received a call from an old friend who was looking for a duo to play some October weekends in New York. After a few weekends of playing we both felt we were on to something so we decided to try it again.
We spent the winter and spring casually learning some songs and finally, at the encouragement of some friends, we got a gig at a small restaurant in the summer of 1996. We we're going to stick with the name we chose before the last gig, “Rest and Peace” (so much so that Chris even figured our business cards would look like little tombstones) but just before we were to play, George had a dream that we were playing under a huge neon sign flashing the name "Scratch & Sniff". Realizing the humor aspect better suited us than the association with death, we went with it.
It wouldn't be until January of 1997 before we got our next job. It was at a local coffee house where we played out of a pair of speakers that are now used for Chris's car stereo and we set up George's guitar case to collect tips. Oh yeah, we also got free coffee.
Fortunately those days didn't last long! In the next few months we found ourselves playing a minimum of 15 gigs a month and that “Scratch & Sniff” had pretty much taken over our identities. Bartenders, waitresses, and club owners alike would call us either “Scratch” or “Sniff”, not Chris or George.
It would only get busier in the following years as we continued to pick up more clubs and constantly add songs. The past few years we found ourselves playing in some very unlikely places but so far we've made it out alive.
We can only guess what the future holds in store...we just hope to see you there!
All the best,
Scratch & Sniff