Just so everyone is clear: idle hands are the devil's workshop. Idol Hands is, well, just about the opposite.
A group of 7 Santa Clara Valley Medical Center employees, Idol Hands is a rock and roll band that for the past decade has donated their musical talents at dozens of charitable events both on and off the VMC campus.
"We're all musicians and we love music," nurse and lead singer Veronica Giles said. "I mean we are professionals at the hospital, but we are all actually professional musicians."
Idol Hands was formed in 2005, as the back-up band for an American Idol inspired fundraising event for the VMC Foundation, called VMC Idol.
The foundation's Executive Director, Chris Wilder, and the hospital's Deputy Director of Ambulatory Care, Greg Price, both musicians, worked together to discover the talent in their midst to create the band.
"We found that we have a lot of talented people in the hospital," Price, one of the band's guitarists, said. "People had a good time."
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As a fundraiser, though, VMC Idol turned out to be too much effort for too little return.
"You know, it didn't raise all that much money," Wilder, the band's bassist, said.
Because of that, the event was scrapped after just three years. The Idol Hands members had such a good time performing together, they decided to keep at it.
"The most fun thing is to connect with your band members and then have that music connect with the audience," said physician and harmonica player Dennis Low. "There's this kind of energy that comes out of that and when everyone's kind of in the groove together."
In addition to creating great music together and helping out dozens of Bay Area charities, Wilder says he is most proud of the diversity in the group; not just ethnically, but professionally.
Keyboardist Gary Lee is also a physician. Guitarist John midst is responsible for deliveries around the VMC campus, and drummer Ruben Chavez is the hospital's locksmith.
"We're all equal on stage," Chavez said. "We're not a doctor, or a locksmith, or a nurse, we're all equal."
"Idol Hands in a way represents the idea that we should all come together and everyone really is part of one large team working together," Wilder said.
