Meet
PASSION

Sensational Sarah Linn and the fabulous Rillera Brothers - Al and Ron, are the original members of the marvelous and extraordinaryily talented group PASSION.  Joined on drums by newest member, the "Irish Beatmaster" Scott O'Malley, these four personable entertainers provide some of the most exciting, fun, and memorable "live" performances you will ever experience!

 

Ron   is the leader, keyboard/guitarist, one of three lead vocalists, and founding member of PASSION.  As a young teen the California keyboard phenom joined a San Francisco bay area R & B/Funk band and began songwriting and arranging music.  The group toured predominately throughout California and Las Vegas, Nevada, and recorded and released three singles on an Indy label, receiving heavy airplay in the bay area, and reaching interested ears in Los Angeles.  A side project for Ron, was arranging and recording music for an album by a Grammy Award winning Gospel music group.  The "interested ears" in Los Angeles led to a lucrative recording contract for the band with iconic Capitol Records.  They recorded and released their first full album, charting on the Billboard Hot 100, and experiencing minor national and international success.  The promising start was followed by tours with major artists, international performances, significant radio airplay, and national television appearances.  Unfortunately, during the recording of their second album the group disbanded.  This was an unfortunate turn of events since Ron was the group's primary songwriter.  After the breakup, Ron accepted a keyboardist position with a touring band.  Two years later he formed his own new touring group PASSION.  Whenever he could, he continued to record, doing sessions in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Bridgeport, Madison, the San Francisco bay area, and Las Vegas, eventually making Las Vegas his primary residence, even though most of the time he was touring with PASSION.  After hearing new songs he had written and recorded with PASSION, Capitol Records once again offered a record deal, but he and the label were not able to agree on terms.  He is still touring, writing, recording, and enjoying his life as a musician.

  
Al    At age seventeen super talented keyboardist/bass guitarist and vocalist Al, left home in Washington D.C., and headed for New York City, where he performed at various nightclubs with local bands before joining a nationally touring group based out of the Big Apple.  After several years of touring success, he too, finally ended up in Las Vegas.  After making the desert oasis his home he was again bitten by the road bug and hit the highways performing with, and being the musical director of several touring bands, including a major "Las Vegas Strip" headliner.  He performed throughout North America, including Alaska and Canada, and his travels even brought him to the island paradise of Hawaii.  After several more tours he decided to stop the traveling altogether in order to continue his formal music education at the internationally renowned Grove School of Music, located at that time in the San Fernando valley area of Los Angeles, adding film/television scoring, orchestral arranging and conducting, and Jazz improvisation to his burgeoning musical repertoire.  After graduating, he returned to Las Vegas and eventually back on the road again.  He was performing at a major casino in Atlantic City, New jersey, when brother Ron called with an invitation to join his newly reformed group PASSION.  Al was enthused about working with his brother again (they first played together in a high-school rock band) and when his contractual obligations in Atlantic City ended, he left to join PASSION.  He continues his personal musical growth with Jazz improvisation studies, "live" performances, and with his own recording studio projects.

 
Sarah Linn   The dynamic front person extraordinaire of PASSION and one of the nation's most soulful, exciting, energetic and outstanding vocalist/entertainers is Sarah Linn.  Her ability to soar with her extended vocal range and move from one genre of music to another effortlessly and with authenticity has awed and amazed audiences nationwide.  Sarah is from a large, devoutly religious family, a native southeast Ohioan, born and raised in small town Waterford, on the dairy farm her family owns and operates.  Her talent to sing was cultivated in church and at family gatherings performing along with several of her musically talented siblings.  She also plays the keyboards and guitar.  Sarah performed with a local rock group while attending college, first at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Steubenville, Ohio, and later at "the" Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio.  She graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in Mathematics.  While vacationing in Galveston, Texas, during the summer after her graduation, she caught a PASSION performance at the iconic Marriott Hotel Galvez, where she introduced herself to Ron, who happened to be looking for a new female lead vocalist.  Upon returning home to Ohio, she sent Ron a demo, which impressed him so much he quickly offered her the position.  She flew into Houston, Texas, a few days later to join the group, and after a few rehearsals performed her first gig with them there.  She now resides with her husband Tom in the small "Great Lakes" city of Marquette, which is located in the upper peninsula of Michigan (the UP), on the sparkling shores of cold but beautiful Lake Superior.  While at home she performs, singing and playing guitar, at her church services and functions, as well as at her hometown church in Waterford, Ohio, whenever she is back at the farm.

Scott    Scotty the newest member of PASSION, hails from northern Illinois, in the Chi-town suburbs, and sets the groove index for the group.  He has played drums with a wide array of groups, performing all genres of musical styles at venues large and small, while touring throughout the USA.  Soft spoken, organized, well prepared, analytical, and always looking to improve himself, his drum playing resume is padded with an impressive array of skills outside of the music industry, including engineering, and being a licensed real estate broker.  Anyone looking for a fab new home in the Chicago area?  Go see Scott.  He'll hook you up!  His hobbies outside of music include, but are not limited to: consuming great food, great drink (especially top-shelf Rum), watching NASCAR, the White Sox, collecting Apple devices, and wearing anything with a Notre Dame logo on it.  Hard to believe, eh?  It must be the Irish in him.  He is always interested in learning the newest dance moves, but this handsome young Irishman may be too shy to ask for assistance, so ladies, please help him out on this one.  He has a beautiful young daughter who is already planning a trip to South Padre Island, Texas, this coming Spring Break, when PASSION will be performing there, in order to spend more quality time with her dad.  Yeah, right, eh?  More info on Scotty will be posted here as it is uncovered, so stay tuned.  We welcome our newest member to the PASSION family and hope you will come out to meet the "new guy" soon.  Bring a camera so we can get a good pic of him posted sooner than later.  LOL.

 

The real scoop!  Here are some tiny tidbits of band member information...

     Sarah has an incredible memory for names and faces (all the right names on all the right faces), is an aspiring cook, fitness workout devotee, officially "licensed" back seat driver, can drive big farm tractors and other farm machinery, and has a lead foot whenever she is driving her car, so look out!  She loves attending and singing in church (one is conveniently located right next door to her house), redecorating her home, redecorating her home, redecorating her home, (did I mention redecorating her home, which is right next door to the church?) and refurbishing antique furniture.  She spends her spare time on the telephone talking to her dad, in-laws, any one of her twelve brothers and sisters, or tens of thousands of nieces, nephews, and friends.  She loves to try out new food recipes on her wonderful husband Tom (is that good or bad, Tom?).  We call her husband Tom, "Mr. Right", only because we know her as "Mrs. Always Right".  LOL!  A devoted child of God, her dream is to one day try out all of those new recipes and more at her own church kitchen for the needy,  Did I really say that?  Please don't tell her.

   Al is a big sports fanatic, loves stand-up comedy, playing golf, is a cycling enthusiast, and has eaten at least one meal in every one of the fifty United States.  Yeah, he's been to every single last one of them!  He spends his extra time cooking (and eating) exotic dishes, studying music, and writing and recording his own original pieces.  He has an eclectic collection of literature and thinks outside of the box.  He's a big fan of and loves to watch those old black and white and retro color television show series' on TV Land and Retro TV.  Go ahead and ask him a trvia question about one of those shows.  My Pomeranians love to follow him around whenever he cooks or eats just in case he drops something good on the floor.  He used to play center field for the New York Yankees, return kicks for the Oakland Raiders, and play point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers (in his dreams).  I don't know what he dreams about now and I'm not sure I want to know.  LOL.

 Scottie also loves to cook (and eat), is a fan of the classic seventies, and big-eighties rock and roll music era, loves dashing around his hometown on his high stylin' black BMW  (watch out ladies), and is also a big fan of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.  He is a bonafide licensed, real estate broker, and will set you straight on your dream home if you privilege him with that task.  His skill set includes engineering, along with fishing.  No, he doesn't fish.  I just made that up because it sounded good.  He also doesn't play golf (hmmm...), but he's willing to learn.  Well, okay then.  LOL. He's an internet enthusiast, and will quickly and conveniently give you all the info you need on any subject if he's standing nearby with an iPhone or iPad in his possession.  I'll have to give you a tad more of tid later because my FBI reports on him haven't come in yet.  Be patient, eh?   

  Ron can read over two thousand words per minute, hmmm... well, when he was in college he could (LOL), still types over a hundred words per minute (like his brother AL), loves traveling, big cities, watching movies, listening to talk radio, playing golf, and caring for his two beautiful six pound female Pomeranians.  He once stood in four different states at the same time (while juggling three cats).  In his youth he was able to speak four different languages fluently, but his brain has since deteriorated from lack of proper use and he now struggles with just one.  He is working on his first screenplay which he hopes to complete sometime next year.  All of his dreams have come true except for one.  He is searching for the perfect mother for his unborn children and is currently and continually holding auditions.  Hey, a perfect woman is hard to find.

Here are some more tiny tidbits of useless information...

The word "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" is the longest word typed with the right hand.

Dartboards are made out of horse hairs.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet.

The words "racecar", "kayak", and "level, are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and facetious.

"Typewriter" is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

A cat has thirty-two muscles in each ear.

A goldfish has a memory span of only three seconds.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps.  They don't appear until the child reaches two to six years of age.

February 1865, is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.

In the last four thousand years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, eight abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

The average person's left hand does fifty-six percent of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE 2 moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The winter of 1932, was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Now you know more than you did before!!! 

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