Jeffrey Maté - World Class Violinist. That's what my grandparents would have liked to read at the top of this bio page. But unfortunately for them, the violin lessons ended when I was in 6th grade after a stint with the grade school orchestra.

Two years later after meeting some new friends in Junior High (middle school) who had already formed their 1st rock band I was hooked on the drums. Neil Peart of Rush was an early influence as well as Stewart Copeland of The Police, Alex Van Halen, and others.

Throughout High School and into College I continued playing drums until at some point in the late 80's, when the band I was in had a terrible time finding a bass guitar player, I decided to step out from behind the kit and learn Bass. We could have looked for another drummer to fill my spot but hey...it was the 80's so we did the trendy thing, we started programming a drum machine and sequencing keyboard parts. Eventually this band morphed again and by the time college was finished the band was me and a friend both playing keyboards, programming bass and drums parts, we had a guitar player and a singer and it was kinda cool. But reality set in and after college people went off and did different things.

I went on to play bass in a band called Atomic Voodoo, we played all over Boston and NH and released a Cd called "Living in the Moment". After that band broke up I decided it was time to return to drums and formed the Invisible Beatniks with the same friend who originally inspired me to play drums in the first place. oddly enough he had also made a switch to bass and then to guitar. That's band lasted a year or so and once again people went in different directions (Not me, I've been in the same place for 38 years).

Which brings me to where we are today. Velvet Elvis was just an idea I came up with driving around one day. I knew people of all ages who enjoyed the music of Elvis Presley and I knew that if I could put together a band that would capture everything people thought was cool about Elvis and leave behind that stereotypical image of Elvis that most people can't stand (You know the Vegas jumpsuit Elvis...the fat shiny superhero) If I could form a band that put the music first and play those songs like no one else, then we would have something special.

After a rough start auditioning different people for this band, we settled on this amazing group of world class musicians that are in a single word AMAZING.

I feel honored to be playing along side these people and over the past few years have enjoyed every rehearsal and show that we've done. I want to use this opportunity to say thank you to Jimmy, Joe, Steve and Richie. Without them this band wouldn't be the same and thanks to them I've become a better musician.