The Fisher Building is bustling with all kinds of energy. Patrons are filing in to see the musical The Band's Visit, buying beverages, and gazing at the 94 year-old building's beautiful marble architecture. Meanwhile, Verzell Page is posted up on the main level people-watching, dressed in a paisley shirt, blue slacks, and a leather blazer.
"You know my 8-year-old daughter looked at me the other day and asked, 'Why you ain't famous yet?'" he says with a laugh. "It's all motivation."
It feels like Verzell, 29, has been on the cusp of stardom his whole life. Born in Detroit, Verzell grew up a child prodigy in Missionary Temple CME church on Detroit's east side.
"I've been a musician before I was alive," says, adding, "What introduced me to music was my great grandma, she was a church pianist."
By age 12 he was playing the piano professionally and had taken over when his great grandmother was ill. But around that same time Verzell's musical interests started to be tugged into secular music.
"Back in the '90s when I was a kid, PBS played the Jerry Lee Lewis biography [Great Balls of Fire!] religiously," he says. "It spoke to me. That early rock 'n' roll between 1928 to 1958 is negro spirtual speed with secular music. That was my first foray into wanting to be a rockstar."
Verzell attended Detroit School of Performing Arts, then transferred to Belleville High School. He taught himself how to play the guitar and began to write and play his own music, but found himself muting his inner rock god. "What I would create was always rock music, but I played soul music," he says while shaking his head.
Verzell graduated in 2009 and spent the next several years playing for several bands in the city and trying to get comfortable with his sound. His own insecurities and the vibes from the inner city made him compromise himself as he became a closet rocker who slapped the label of "alternative R&B" on his music.
"First thing I put out was a song called 'Love is like a Drug' in 2016," he says. "It was more alternative. And then the following year I put together an EP called Experience with a blend of rock, soul, and alternative. The difference is back then I was apologetically me where now I'm unapologetically me."
Experience brought Verzell the notoriety and attention he was looking for to build a fanbase. He performed on stages all over the state, opened for Howard Hewett at Hart Plaza, and made it a point to give fans a lot more rock than they anticipated.
"I still felt like I was cheating on myself," he says. "When I performed all the songs, they came out in a much heavier fashion. The fans would come to the show to hear one thing, but I turned those fuckers out."
Verzell took a brief hiatus in 2018, then moved to Windsor, started a band, and took a job as assistant musical director for a seven-show installation of Footloose: The Musical in 2019. The success of that opportunity led to Verzell landing a gig as assistant musical director for a 14-show installation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was set to begin in April of 2020. But the hot streak came to an abrupt halt in March of 2020.
"I was in town visiting my daughter when the world shut completely down," he says. "I wasn't even able to get back over the border and get my stuff."
Like many other creatives did during the pandemic, Verzell took to Instagram and TikTok for a creative outlet, routinely posting guitar rock covers of popular songs. "Just to keep busy I would do rock guitar [Instagram Reels]," he says. "One of the first ones I did was in August of 2021, it was Bia's 'Whole Lotta of Money.'"
The Los Angeles rapper messaged Verzell, telling him how much she loved his cover, and shared it on her Instagram story. Eleven days later Verzell posted a cover of Joseline Hernandez's "Live Your Best Life," and she, too, messaged him and made a post on her Instagram account featuring his cover.
Verzell's views and followers grew. "People started shouting me out that I didn't even know were paying attention," he says.
As the world began to open back up, Verzell went back to Canada, connected with his bandmates, and met and recorded music with multi-instrumentalist Derek Impens (who also is the drummer for Billy Raffoul). Now more confident and focused than ever, Verzell began to write and play the kind of music he's always wanted too. On Jan. 7, he dropped a song called "Ego Trippin.'"
"It marked the evolution of my creativity," he says.
“That early rock ’n’ roll between 1928 to 1958 is negro spiritual speed with secular music. That was my first foray into wanting to be a rockstar.”
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"Ego Trippin'" is a three-and-a-half-minute odyssey of a rock song that sees Verzell sing at a Prince-like falsetto pitch while aggressively strumming an electric guitar. "Tell me your vision mama," he sings. "Tell me what it is you see. I wanna hear it. Tell me all your fantasies."
He released his second single in March titled "Homicide." "'Homicide' talks about political oppression, separatism, classisms, dirty organized religion," he explains, adding, "Separate the class, profit of the mass."
Verzell plans to release two EPs this summer starting with War and Peace dropping on July 1. "The first one is more vintage style, we used amplifiers from the '50s and '60s to get that vintage sound," he says. "The second EP is called Indie Rock & Whisky. That has more so just a voice and guitar. Maybe a bass, two instruments at the most, it just has more of a more intimate feeling."
Verzell wrote every song, and all the instruments were played live (by himself and Derek Impens). There are no loops or beat machines, and each EP will only have four songs each.
"I want people to be excited by song number four,' he says. "I don't care what kind of musician you are, mainstream or what. After song number four, the excitement calms down. I want people to be excited for song number four the same way they are for song number one."
Overall, Verzell says he's enjoying the new found comfort he has in his own musical skin. He's a Black man performing and recording a genre of music that isn't R&B or hip-hop. Rock 'n' roll was started by Black people, but has had a complicated relationship with Black music lovers since the 1960s.
"It's my goal to put rock 'n' roll back at the forefront," he says. "But at the same time, it never really left ... We only rock on so many frequencies, and if you ain't on my frequency that's fine, but you're going to respect me because everything I do is with artistic integrity. I play my own, I write my own, I sing my own!"
Verzell will perform as part of the "Taste of Black Spirits" show on Thursday, June 16 at Yum Village, 6500 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-334-6099; yumvillagemarketpantry.com. Doors at 7 p.m.
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