Remembering Ronald Koal & the Trillionaires

I was proud to call myself a hard-core groupie of Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires. My love was not for Ronald personally but for the art and performance of Ronald and his collaborators. They wrote great songs, songs that should have been shared with the World, songs that could have become staples of classic rock radio formats and part of our cultural consciousness. They were as good as anything anyone anywhere was writing and performing in the early 80s. There were strong, memorable melodies and lyrics and the music was fresh and innovative with rhythms that were extremely danceable.The musicians backing Ronald and helping him write were very talented and they just kept getting better as they worked with each other. Even today, echoes of the Trillionaires reverberate in Columbus. My favorite local band, The Randys, features the incomparable guitarist, Matt Newman, and drummer Jimmy Castoe has been omnipresent in the Columbus jazz and rock scene for 30 years. I even remember being pleasantly surprised when Ronald came back after the Trillionaires with some really excellent bands that included Todd Novack and Ed Shuttlesworth playing some great new material.

Ronald’s appearance on the music scene happily coincided with a turning point in my life. I got divorced and graduated from law school in 1980. I had been hanging out with the same Eastside crowd of musicians and friends since high school and I was ready to move on to a new life. I don’t remember how I found Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires but once I did, I was hooked. I discovered a whole new world in Columbus’ music underground. My current family tree of social relationships begins with the people I began meeting around the music of Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires. The dozens of performances that I was lucky enough to witness were the graduate level of my continuing education in rock and roll that began with my garage bands and involvement with the Dave Workman Blues Band.

Those years of going out to hear the Trillionaires were, for me, joyous, golden days of a great girlfriend, great sex, great drugs (714 sopors) and great rock and roll. There was a small group of us who danced to every song, all night long. We knew most of the lyrics which we would sing at the top of our lungs and interpret, as if for the hearing impaired, with practiced hand and arm movements and facial expressions. I experienced so much happiness listening to Ronald Koal and the Trillionaires and I am so thankful to them. I will certainly never forget them and I’m glad to see that others are trying to perpetuate the memory of this high point in the history of the Columbus music scene.

I knew that Ronald was the stereotypical tragic genius bent on self-destruction. My best friend from my old crowd had the same problem. I never got close to Ronald but he knew how much I appreciated him and I knew that down deep underneath the cool rock star image he was a warm and gentle human being. Towards the end when he experienced some legal difficulties, he called on my expertise to help him out. It was pretty simple, I didn’t do much but he appreciated it enough to make me a laminated card that I have carried in my wallet ever since. Yes, it is sad that Ronald ended his life and who knows what he might have accomplished if he had survived the difficult turns of fate that came his way. Who knows what happiness he may have been able to find for himself. He may not have known what he was he was doing when he pulled that trigger under the influence of those little yellow pills but I suspect that maybe he knew that he had created something truly wonderful and beautiful during his life but that maybe he believed he never would again. I’m going to respect his decision to not live in a world where he might finally be arriving at Destination Zero. Hopefully, the rest of us can keep alive the memory that he once was Living For Something.