Submitted photo Gilliland is dressed and ready to jam in one of his outfits as part of the 1991 music scene in Los Angeles. He returned to the Valley reunite with the other Thee 8 Balls band members and with scores of stories of the entertainment world.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of Saturday profiles of area residents and their stories. To suggest a profile, contact features editor Burton Cole at bcole@trib today.com.

YOUNGSTOWN — In the early 1980s,Youngs-town’s punk, post-punk and new wave scene emerged, swiftly picking up on the raw sounds of Pittsburgh, Akron and Cleveland. One of the key figures was Tim Gilliland, guitarist and vocalist of the acclaimed local punk act Thee 8 Balls.

Gilliland grew up in Youngstown in the 1960s.

“I was the youngest and had to go to bed first, but I didn’t go to sleep. I was listening. My sister played The Beatles and Monkees records in one room. My dad was strumming country songs on the guitar in another room and mom was in the basement on piano playing show tunes. My brother would be in the kitchen with Motown / James Brown on the radio.

“When it all quieted down, I listened to the rhythm of the furnace pipes and made up songs,” Gilliland said.

During the 1970s, Youngstown’s legendary record shop Underdog Records opened.

Gilliland and his friends “hung out there so much they eventually gave us jobs. For us, this was a teenage paradise,” he said. “I got exposed to so much new music there — funk, jazz and punk stuff I wouldn’t have listened to on my own.”

The bonus was that it was a ticket outlet for the big shows at The Tomorrow Club / Youngstown Agora on Federal Street in downtown Youngstown.

“We were on the ‘free’ list for all shows. Every band on their way up or down stopped in Youngstown at The Tomorrow Club / Youngstown Agora, including Tom Petty, AC/DC, Cheap Trick and Joan Jett. These were all just opening acts at the time. The place was filled with blues legends , metal lords and new-wavers,” Gilliland said.

While attending Youngstown State University, Gilliland and his friends would skip classes to hang out at The Music Listening Room on campus, which had thousands of records. He said that led to the formation of Thee 8 Balls.

“My friend Greg Cadman (who later played guitar in touring local act, Sister Ray) asked my other friend, Herb Somers and I to come by on the weekend to ‘jam’. I barely played guitar and Somers was fairly new on the bass,” he said. “We got there and Cadman informed us that they were auditioning drummers that day. We were astounded. We’d never played a note. So we let the disaster begin. Our local drum legend Landon Finnerty showed up and that afternoon we became a band.”

Thee 8 Balls got popular playing their own quirky rock tunes along with Youngstown acts The B-Minors and the Sonics. Soon, Thee 8 Balls packed the rooms of Cedars Lounge and The YSU Pub.

“At that time, only a few local bands did original music, popular acts such as Left End and Blue Ash, and even they played Top 40 hits most of the time. This was a new concept for Youngstown. The punk / new wave and the MTV generation made it trendy and people would go to other cities to check out their scene,” Gilliland said.

Thee 8 Balls got to open for some popular acts, including MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, The Waitresses and The Producers.

“There was an energy and you followed it. People were creating things all over the place and you were a part of it,” Gilliland said.

After four years of being together, band members went in different directions. Bassist Bob Cerny moved to the East Coast; guitarist Dave Taraszewski moved to Cleveland; and drummer Sandy Naples went to medical school.

Gilliland moved to Los Angeles, which had a promising alternative scene filled with acts such as X, TSOL, The Deadbeats, Jane’s Addiction, and Tex and The Horseheads.

“My first job in L.A. was as a security guard at EMI / Capitol Records. My first day there, after the office workers left at 6 p.m., the recording studios came alive. It was Alice Cooper in one studio and The Red Hot Chili Peppers in the other. Wow! It was pretty bedazzling for a kid from Y-town!

“A few days later, I was at work talking to my mom on the phone. Alice Cooper came over to my desk and said, ‘Can you help me? I just lost my cookies.’ I said into the phone, ‘Gotta go, Mom, Alice Cooper just lost his cookies.’

“The cookies were stuck in the vending machine,” Gilliland said.

EMI / Capitol then hired him to work in its mail room.

“It was an extraordinary job. We got free records, T-shirts, leather jackets, suede Bowie jackets and free concerts,” he said. “I would deliver things to people like Sheena Easton, who answered the door in her bathrobe. … We would rent a tour bus to go to a Queensryche / AC/DC gig and have parties on yachts for Kim Carnes. After Youngstown, it was unbelievable the money being spent.”

Gilliland remembers being backstage at a Bowie show standing with a group of women who worked at EMI.

“Our company rep brought David Bowie over to meet our group. I was in front but the rep was quite nervous and forgetting peoples’ names, blurted out, ‘David these are … the GIRLS’. I laughed, David laughed, we shook hands. A little moment there,” Gilliland said.

He describes life in L.A. as a time of always chasing down the rent and working odd jobs, including working on music videos for popular artists such as Pink Floyd, Aerosmith and Tears For Fears.

“I would set up drums, go buy a live mouse, and take photos of sinks and toilets from the 1930s. I would do stuff like buff the floor and paint an airplane hangar,” Gilliland said.

Now Gilliland is back home in Youngstown. Thee 8 Balls sporadically reunite. They’ve played shows at Cedars Lounge / Cedar’s West End. During the summer of 2014, the band mourned the passing of Taraszewski.

In 2018, the band released a full-length album “That was then … This is wow!” which is comprised of all newly re recorded classic songs. Life as an Eight Ball keeps rolling.