The Werks long time keyboardist, Norman Dimitrouleas, died over the weekend, he was 33.

Norman grew up in Kettering, OH and started playing piano in grade school.  “My parents got me lessons from a teacher skilled in teaching classical music.  I was pretty good at it, but I wanted to play some rock and roll.  She had me playing Bach and Beethoven, so one day I brought in the Beatles Let It Be and another song and asked her if I could learn it,” he stated.  “She ended up telling me that he ‘wasn’t ready’ for that type of thing and she gave me Bach’s second to learn.  I went home and worked on playing Let It Be and just barely touched practicing Bach,” Dimitrouleas said almost shamefully. “When I went back to practice the next week she asked me to pull out Bach.  I got through about two bars of it and she said, ‘That’s it?’  I told her, ‘But look what I did learn,’ and I played a ripping Let It Be,” he exclaimed with a toothy grin, seeming to remember the day it happened. “She looked at me kind of blankly and said, ‘Well, I guess I didn’t understand the direction you wanted to go in and what you’ce come here for.’  And from then on I’ve been playing rock.”

You can read more from our 2012 interview with Norman here.