Though con­sist­ing of gifted actors, Band from TV is far from a van­ity band feed­ing the ego of its tele­vi­sion celebrity mem­bers. We were impressed not only with the tal­ents of the band mem­bers indi­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, but more impor­tantly with how hum­ble and car­ing they are. Band from TV isn’t about them at all. It’s about giv­ing to charity.

What began sim­ply as a love of music and sim­ply jam­ming with friends has evolved into con­certs before packed houses play­ing rock and roll for wor­thy char­i­ta­ble causes around the world.

On Feb­ru­ary 18–20, Band from TV played before sold out crowds at Fallsview Casino Resort’s 1500-seat Avalon The­atre. This rep­re­sented the band’s third visit to Fallsview, a venue they con­sider one of the finest they’ve played. “Fallsview is great, with great peo­ple hav­ing as much fun as we do. I love to go to the Falls,” says Greg Grun­berg, the band’s founder.

Between shows, Grun­berg and fel­low cast mem­bers took time to speak with us about the band, their love of music, and their pas­sion for sup­port­ing charities.

Scott Grimes is per­haps known for play­ing Dr. Archie Mor­ris on the NBC prime time show “ER”, a role he started in 2003 until the series’ end in 2009. But he’s also an accom­plished musi­cian. In fact, he started singing at a young age and as a child appeared on a Bob Hope TV Spe­cial in 1986 taped in Swe­den with the King and Queen in atten­dance. Today, he sings and plays key­boards with other celebri­ties as a mem­ber of Band From TV.

Scott Grimes was already acquainted with the band when asked to join by founder Greg Grun­berg and read­ily agreed. “I just love being a mem­ber of the band, and it’s an hon­our to be a part of it,” Scott says.
Every mem­ber of Band from TV plays for their own char­ity, rais­ing approx­i­mately $3 mil­lion to date for var­i­ous causes. For his part, Scott plays for Lupus LA, the West Coast divi­sion of S.L.E. Lupus Foun­da­tion. “After hav­ing dear friends be diag­nosed with lupus, and another pass­ing on due to the ill­ness, rais­ing money for lupus was some­thing I wanted to do,” he says.

Scott finds pure joy in per­form­ing. Even today, 2 years and almost 30 shows after join­ing, you still could hear the excite­ment in Scott’s voice when talk­ing about his par­tic­i­pa­tion in Band from TV. “Our rehearsal space is like no other. We went from a garage band to a great man cave. We’ve had so many won­der­ful peo­ple donate so much that it’s become a great place to rehearse,” he explains. “We have a lot of fun on stage, right down to danc­ing like lit­tle girls. It’s a great show and every­one should see it”.

We asked Scott if there was any­thing else he wanted to share: “Yes! I want to thank Greg Grun­berg and Bob Guiney for allow­ing me to be a part of the band, which enables me to give back to char­i­ties. That’s the best part of it”.

Band from TV owes its exis­tence to Greg Grun­berg, an actor well known for his roles in tele­vi­sion hits “Lost”, “Heroes”, “Alias” and “Felic­ity”. Though an accom­plished actor, Greg has always had a desire to play music.

“I started play­ing drums in a garage band. Isn’t that where every­one starts, in someone’s garage?” Greg laughs.

When asked to play a gig at the House of Blues with a cou­ple of celebri­ties. The per­for­mance gen­er­ated an over­whelm­ing inter­est. Inspired by this reac­tion, Greg decided to form a celebrity band that could also serve as a plat­form for another pas­sion: rais­ing money for char­i­ta­ble causes. “My old­est son has epilepsy and I saw a celebrity band as a won­der­ful vehi­cle to help raise money for the National Epilepsy Foun­da­tion,” explains Greg, a phil­an­thropist by nature.

To that end, Greg enlisted other celebri­ties like Hugh Lau­rie from “House,” James Den­ton from “Des­per­ate House­wives,” and Bob Guiney who appeared on “The Bach­e­lor” and Band from TV was formed. Soon after, Adrian Pas­dar (“Heroes”) and Scott Grimes joined as well. Round­ing out the band is Chris Kel­ley, the music direc­tor, Barry Sarna from the Eagles, and Brad Sav­age, a for­mer child star who plays bass.

Greg wants peo­ple to become aware of the web­site he founded, TalkAboutIt.org, which was designed to raise aware­ness and funds for peo­ple with epilepsy. Greg is the offi­cial spokesper­son for TalkAboutIt.org and for the Epilepsy Foun­da­tion. “There is a lot of Myths out there about Epilepsy and with the help of other celebri­ties and doc­tors we hope to edu­cate people”.

While tal­ented actors, the band is about cel­e­brat­ing music and most impor­tantly rais­ing money through music to help those in need. It’s heart­warm­ing to see celebri­ties, even with busy per­sonal and pro­fes­sional lives, find­ing the time to come together and jam on behalf of charity.

Source: Today Mag­a­zine