About George DeCola

George A. DeCola, II–Vocals, Keyboards, Guitar

I was born in Utica, NY and moved to Richmond, VA in 2001, with my wife right after we got married. I’ve been singing since elementary school when my father, sister and I would sing “Goin’ To The Chapel” in 3 part harmony while cleaning up the dishes after supper. I’ve sung in many choirs in school and the community my whole life.  I taught myself to play guitar and keyboards in 1989, so I could write songs because my girlfriend dumped me. (Love provides great inspiration for song writing!)  I played in rock-n-roll bands with my dad for about 5 years in bars, nightclubs, festivals, weddings, etc… After that, my father and I started a Beatles Tribute Band called ‘Abbey Road’ which I played in from 1996-2001.  This was such a great project as we had the Beatle guitars, amplifiers, wore costumes and wigs. It was an awesome show musically which combined a slide show, with The Beatles narrating the audio portion, telling the history of The Beatles and their songs.  We were fortunate to have played in front of thousands of people at some amazing places, in which some include: The Beatle Fest in New York City, New York State Fair, Hershey Park, PA and many other premier gigs around Central NY.   In March of 2004, God tapped me on the shoulder and my passion erupted for the Lord. I turned to music and joined the praise band at church and eventually, became the Worship Coordinator at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Midlothian, VA, in 2009. While I have thoroughly enjoyed playing at church, I also missed playing rock music. So, I answered an ad in 2011 for ‘Kinetic Element’ (a Richmond based progressive rock band) and sang lead for them for about 2 years.  During that time, God had put on my heart to solicit Christian musicians to play positive secular music which became a band called, ‘ Beyond Before’. However, that unfortunately, never really got off the ground.  After that, I auditioned for ‘Route 64′ (which is a top 40 variety dance band) as they needed a keys player and I’ve played with them on and off since 2016. My friend, Mike Borgos, joined ’64’ in 2018 and shortly after, we formed the ‘George & Mike Duo’, then added Cat Sadlowski to make it a Trio, and kept adding pieces to become the ‘Legal Tender Party Band’. I auditioned with ‘KOS’ (Kings of Swing) Feb. 2020 and we all know what happened after that. 🙂 So, in May of 2021 when they asked me to join ‘KOS’, I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Thank you Bruce S. for asking me to come aboard. The Dogwood Dell was amazing to play! And It’s great playing with some of the best musicians in all Central VA.