Members

MIKE VISAGGIO

(keyboards and vocals)

Mike is the founder of Kinetic Element and has been involved in music since 1962, playing in a number of New York City cover bands, progressive rock groups Randori (early ‘70s), Innervision .(early ‘80s) and recording several albums with noted singer-songwriter Billy Falcon’s Burning Rose in the years 1977-1981 and the Richmond's legendary Strokers in the early 2000s. The veteran keyboardist began his first foray back into the realm of progressive music, after a long hiatus, with a spiritually tinged neo-symphonic solo CD called STARSHIP UNIVERSE in 2006, which served to indroduce him to the prog rock community. A spiritual Christian, Mike believes the overall tone of the disc is one of hope and enlightenment. That sentiment carried over into the POWERED BY LIGHT project, a symphonic progressive rock album which musically reflects Hammond B3 organ and synthesizer giants like Keith Emerson and Tony Kaye as well as Rick Wakeman and Geoff Downes. His sensibility to the individual rights of man as the basis of liberty inspired the TRAVELOG album. Mike was also heavily influenced by the pop and rock of his youth citing Felix Cavaliere (Young Rascals), Mark Stein (Vanilla Fudge), Steve Winwood (Traffic, Blind Faith) and Lee Michaels as essential touchstones.


(Photo by Pierre Menard)

MICHAEL MURRAY

Drums, Vocals

Michael received his initial impetus to pursue the drums from his father who also is a drummer. He began playing in the 6th grade and has not looked back since. He has been a mainstay for three decades on the Richmond, Virginia music scene having performed in a number of blues, classic rock, country and southern rock cover bands. He is a big fan of classic bands like Rush, Heart, Yes, Pink Floyd and the Allman Brothers but also follows the modern progressive and jam scene with Dave Matthews Band, Govt. Mule and Spocks Beard topping his list. Yearning to play more intellectually stimulating music, Michael performed on Mike Visaggio's solo project, and in 2006 joined Mike to form Kinetic Element. He is credited with coming up with the band's name, and performed recording engineer duties as KE recorded its new material.


(Photo by Pierre Menard)

PETER MATUCHNIAK

Guitars


Peter grew up listening to a variety of music, but it was the early Genesis albums that captured his imagination. He began teaching himself guitar, mostly under the influence of Steve Hackett, Andy Latimer (Camel), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Mike Oldfield, but ultimately forming his own unique style. While still at school, Peter released cassette albums with London-based Janysium and Mach One that became associated with the British neo-prog movement in the earl 1980s, and subsequently sold copies in the thousands. During his travels to India he wrote and recorded commercial jingles for national TV (1987), before moving to California where he released several CDs since 2008 with Evolve IV (2007-2008), Gekko Project (2009-2015) and Bomber Goggles (2018), as well as two solo albums and a live DVD(2012-2015). Peter has also recorded sessions for Marco Ragni, Transportinae and Psychic for Radio (2012-2017). In 2016 he was asked to form a tribute band to "Early Steve Hackett" called The Steppes, with musicians well-known to the L.A.prog community (Randy George, Jonathan Sinfelman, Scott Connor and Pamela George) that received rave reviews from Hackett's original touring band. Peter was contacted by KE keyboardist Mike Visaggio after KE's guitarist decided to leave the band late in 2017, and his work trying his skills and sensibilities on one of their new pieces convinced KE members to ask him to get involved with their ongoing project. Peter became part of the KE family in early February 2018 and will be on their forthcoming CD The Face of Life.


(Photo by Robert Smith)

MARK TUPKO

Bass Guitars

Mark joined Kinetic Element as of May 2014 as the band continued work on its latest CD release. Born in Poland, Mark has demonstrated some serious bass chops and prog rock sensibility in spite of not having played prog since before coming to America. Still active in Richmond classic rock tribute band Poisonous Crue, it is plain he is comfortable in many styles of music. He, like Michael Murray, joined Kinetic Element to play something more challenging. KE is enjoying a promising creative relationship with Mark.


(Photo by Pierre Menard)

SAINT JOHN COLEMAN

Lead Vocals


Kinetic Element's kilt-wearing newest member has pleasantly surprised them in his second attempt to join the band (the first was in 2013), and the guys are pretty excited that it looks like in 2016 this is going to work. In the wilds of the Bronx, NY train yards lived a boy. By the wits developed running from wild rats and dogs, all sorts of riff raffand later the police, little Johnny was discovered to have a voice quite like that of Geddy Lee - After singing for a string of RUSH cover bands, John studied with Katie Agresta, New York's premier vocal instructor, to broaden his vocal abilities to their current range and refine his technique. Currently also performing with stadium rock tribute DEJA, he is now happy to be singing with Kinetic Element. John hates pants.


(Photo by Helaine Burch)