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Dena Tauriello has rocked her whole life. Coming up with several bands, she brought power to the stage and a solid pocket in the studio. With country rockers Antigone Rising, Tauriello honed her craft to become the respected timekeeper she is today, displaying equal parts muscle and finesse over the course of several well-received records and tons of live concerts.

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Tauriello’s secret weapon wasn’t just bashing away with abandon, though. Rather, it was her undying love for both Ringo Starr and Karen Carpenter, two drummers who got by without much flash, but whose sounds were irreplaceable in their respective bands. That’s the influence she draws on as a member of Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas’s stripped down quartet, where she taps into her subtler side. And now Tauriello finds herself deep in the world of Broadway, locked in the pit of Head Over Heels, a new production featuring the music of ’80s pop rockers the Go-Go’s.

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One might think this is a whole new scene of meticulous charts and stuffy audiences, certainly the opposite of the seedy rock clubs and festival stages Tauriello has been dealing with her whole life. But today’s Broadway is a different animal, with numerous recent shows featuring full-on rock bands playing modern hits. So Tauriello will have room to shine and bring a little of her attention and song-oriented detail to material everyone knows. Oh, and of course she’s still going to rock.

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MD: How did Head Over Heels happen? Were there auditions? Did you have to brush up on sight-reading?

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Dena: Interesting you mention those things, because neither of them were part of the process. I didn’t audition or have to do any sight-reading.

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As is so often the case in this industry, I knew the right people. I had been on a quest for the last several years to get connected to the Broadway world. I grew up a theater geek, and my mom used to take us to see shows, front center orchestra. And back then, before it turned into these full rock orchestrations, there was a real, full orchestra down there, and I’d sit and peer over the edge of the railing into the pit and look at the drummer and think how cool it was. I also had aspirations of playing rock ’n’ roll, which is the path I took out of the gate. But over the last few years I started to put my toe in the water of trying to figure out how to crack this nut.

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