Geoffrey R. Lupton remembers an early version of RENEGADE...

Yes, Larry Hall is right, he was in the previous Renegade before you, because he replaced me. It kinda goes like this..As Franko and I had "Hickory" going with Mike Kelly and Mark Yamaguchi, we were thinking about a bit more electric sound. So, we found Stan Singleton to play drums. I was going to do a little keys with my Rhodes, and play some electric rhythm. We practiced a bit, did some gigs at Smokies, the Place Next Door, the I Don't Know Yet, and some private stuff. With my legal entanglements, I couldn't travel much, so I had to step out. Franko hooked up with Larry, and they gigged for a while, and I went off to do some solo stuff at Fargos, Muldoons and Steak and Ale. I was out of the loop, but at some point Mike split, I guess Larry split too. Franko came by one of my Fargo's gigs, hung out, sat in, and said he had a few gigs to cover. We put "Hickory" back together with Mark, and got Buster Adams to play 2nd guitar, with me mostly on lead (oohh, noooo). We gigged wherever, and had some good times and good tunes. I met my wife to be, Adeana, at one of our gigs. She even started to sit in with us at some gigs, including a wedding I think Franko had booked for Renegade some time before. I think I remember one night we were playing Stuart Anderson Cattle Company, and you (Mike Lowell and John Hogan) came over to talk to Franko about putting a new band together. I went back to doing solo stuff and working on recordings until the call went out (years later) from Renegade (by now a very successful cover band) to get a keyboard player to move up to those Journey/ Styx / Loverboy songs and Franko called me up.. but that's another story for another day.
Seriously Mike, in the lexicon of trivia del Bands a las San Antonio, I would say there was a 'proto-Renegade' that Franko started up, but after Larry and Mike left, it was kinda gone. When you and John got Franko to start a new band, the name was perfect for the format, so there was the real "Renegade", and that doesn't knock anyone from the "proto" version, they were just way too different in style and format to call it the same band, especially with a gap of probably 2 years (I think..) in between."

(ML writes: "Originally John Hogan and myself had teamed up with a singer named Buddy to start the new band. After a month or so Buddy dropped out of the project for personal financial reasons. We then approached Frank about filling the spot. The name 'Renegade' came about after tossing around many names for this new outfit. We finally decided to simply recycle the now unused name 'Renegade' even though it had no relationship in sound, style, or kinship to the previous outfit. Eventually we had to change that name to 'HOT CHEXX' because the name Renegade was owned by a California group who sued us for the rights")

- GL / ML Feb,2002