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!

Marty Hardon

Marty Hardon is the drummer for Route 66. He first played with Dave in the Howard Davis Band throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Marty has played in studios and with all kinds of bands in Dallas, Nashville and throughout the Midwest.

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.In 2000, I met Mike Gross from Grinnell and along with Van, Dave Elliott, myself and three other guys, we started a seven piece swing band. But we lost the sax, piano and drummer shortly after. The rest of us hired Jerome Allen from Grinnell to play drums and we called ourselves Route 66. That’s where I’ve been since. Jerome quit in 2005 and we now have a new drummer, Marty Hardon from Tama and he is a great drummer.

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.