Chartwells employee Ron Ruppel rocks out with The Tone Def All-Stars

When Southeast Missouri State University's Chartwells Assistant Retail Dining Director Ron Ruppel isn't overseeing the daily operations of the University Center, Starbucks, Subway and Houck's Place, he's taking every chance he can to rock out with his band The Tone Def All-Stars.

Ruppel has played with The Tone Def All-Stars for 15 years and is the original drummer of the band. The band consists of four other members: Darren Burgfeld, Craig Marshall, Matt Pyeatte and Patrick Koetting.

"We play cover songs," Ruppel said. "But we do cover songs our own way. We will take songs that maybe are in the same key and blend them together or songs that we think fit together or songs that are completely different."

An example of The Tone Def All-Stars blending songs together is the band combining Lady GaGa's "You and I," The Beatles' "Hey Jude," Sublime's "Bad Fish" and songs from the band 38 Special, Ruppel said.

The Tone Def All-Stars was born out of the band members playing together at a local bar called Jeremiah's -- which is now closed -- and took off from there.

"We played there once a week for free hosting open mic and we just kept building off songs that people would request or we just knew," Ruppel said. "That formed The Tone Def All-Stars, and we just went from there."

However, some of the band members knew each other years before then. The band's singer, Burgfeld, said he's known Ruppel since playing together in a band called Cataphasia during their college years at Southeast Missouri State University around 1996.

After Cataphasia disbanded, Ruppel was always the go-to drummer for Jeremiah's open mic nights, Burgfeld said.

The band currently performs about once a month at That One Bar at 36 North Spanish St. and is booked to play at a wedding next August.

The Tone Def All-Stars has more of a rock sound but tends to include a variety of genres in their performances.

"We've been known to play some country and some jazz and some rock all in the same song, but we're Missouri-weather rock," Ruppel said. "If you don't like it, it'll change in about 15 minutes."

The band is also working on a new acoustic project called "Those Darned Argyle Socks," which features the same songs the band usually plays but in a lighter version.

"There's songs in that one that I love doing because they're so stripped down and just the raw element of it," Burgfeld said.

The Tone Def All-Stars have played at local benefits as well. The band was featured at Happy Slapowitz's Toy Bash that raises money and collects new toys for kids during the holidays and the Save Cottonwood benefit to support keeping the Cottonwood Treatment Center open.

"We do that on occasion," Ruppel said. "We'll donate our time to other causes."

The Tone Def All-Stars' original songs have also been aired on the former Rage 103.7 in the past.

The band's most recent performance took place Nov. 15 at the SEMO tailgate before the football game followed by a performance later that night at That One Bar. Fans can also check out more about the band at facebook.com/tonedefallstars.

"If you don't have a good time, it's not our fault," Ruppel said. "We did everything possible."