Dave Elliott

Dave Elliott is the lead guitar and banjo player in the band. He played with his in-laws in the Howard Davis Band in the seventies and eighties where he played lead guitar, steel guitar and banjo. In the early to mid-eighties, he played with the popular central Iowa band, Texas, again playing guitar, steel guitar and banjo. After Texas broke up, he again played with the Howard Davis Band. He has also played with several bluegrass bands, picking flat-top guitar. Dave can play anything from AC/DC to Flatt and Scruggs!

Craig Sieck

Craig is the drummer for Route 66. Playing drums for many years, Craig has played with many great musicians and has been in a lot of different groups. Craig moved out of his garage band career at the early age of 16 when he started playing with the Howard Davis Band in the mid 80s. Other groups include The Lit Fuse Band, Legend, Flashback and Nighthawks. These groups covered music from classic country, 50s & 60s rock and roll, funk, disco to classic rock. With these groups Craig has had opportunities to open for nationally known acts such as The Ozark Mountain Daredevils (If You Want To Get To Heaven, Jackie Blue) and more recently Billy Currington with Route 66. Craig enjoys all types of music from big band to heavy metal and everything in-between, and this love of variety makes him a perfect fit for a high energy variety band like Route 66. Craig has also played in musical productions performed in the theater and has spent time in the recording studio with some of the groups that he has played with.

Van Switzer

Hi, my name is Van and I play bass for Route 66. To begin with if you have read my brothers bio then you already know a lot about my musical history, with a few minor details.

After my brother and I started to learn guitar we started our first band with some good friends in Liscomb. When we first got together we didn’t have a bass player. My Dad had an old Kent bass in the house with an amp, so I decided I would learn to play bass for the band. Well to make a long story short, I have been hooked on the bass guitar ever since.

Right now I love my Yamaha 6-string bass and that’s what I play the most on stage, even though I still play my 4 and 5 string basses occasionally. I also enjoy playing my acoustic guitar and I play a little banjo. I hope someday I could play banjo as good as our lead guitarist Dave Elliott, but he’s a master at all stringed instruments. Okay, enough of that! I would like to tell you about some of the other bands I played in that my brothers bio didn’t mention. For a short period of time Vic and I didn’t play together. I played with a rock band called Mad Dog from Fort Dodge, Iowa. That was a great band! I also played with another rock band out of Boone, Iowa, called Burnt Shoe. That band was not together long, but I had fun.

After that I hooked back up with Vic and started playing with his band called Gold Rush in the mid 70’s and that great organization lasted 25 years.

As you already know Route 66 is now my top priority and I couldn’t find a better talented bunch of guys to play and be friends with, and that will put up with me. Over the years I’ve played with a lot of great players and performed on countless stages for countless audiences. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the great musicians I’ve played with and to all the fans that have supported me over the years!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vic Switzer

By 1976, my brother had replaced Tom as the bass player. Between Tim Duden and Tim Case, Gold Rush lasted until January of 1997. By that time we had opened for many big name acts over the years and played hundreds of venues, large and small. Those were the good years!For three years I free-lanced around with many different players from the Waterloo and Cedar Rapids area. I got to know and play with alot of very talented players, playing mostly pedal steel.

I love playing in this band because everyone is experienced and we play such a wide range of music. It’s an honor for me to be associated with such good musicians and friends.