Former NYS Trooper Happy with New Career: Musician
By Tom and Jerry Caraccioli
At the height of Beatlemania in 1966, Karen and Michelle Kunzwiler found out they were going to become big sisters.
Their parents, former Oswego City Chief of Police Floyd, and wife, Joan, told the girls they would let them name their yet-to-be-born baby brother.
It wasn’t hard for the 11-year-old and 8-year-old sisters to narrow it down to just four names.
“I was the unplanned baby to come along in 1966 when all the young girls were in love with the Beatles,” explained Paul Kunzwiler, former New York State Trooper and current proprietor of “Clean Check” Hockey Pro Shop in Oswego. “They were able to name me, so they gave me the name Paul after Paul McCartney, the coolest and cutest Beatle they ever knew.”
After a 20-year law enforcement career as a member of Troop D in New York state in which danger and stress were a part of Kunzwiler’s everyday life, including time spent helping in New York City following the 9/11 attacks, he retired from police work in 2008. Kunzwiler then opened “Clean Check” Hockey Pro Shop. The idea of music never entered his mind. But eventually a new, fun path his father always knew was in him began to strike a chord in his life.
“My father had a banjo that I used to fool around playing,” Kunzwiler said. “But I never took a lesson, never learned how to play it. I played some chords that he would show me, but I didn’t really ever think anything of it. I could play a two-chord, three-chord song but that was it.”
It wasn’t until his best friend, Bill Cahill, cajoled him into thinking about playing the guitar.
“At one point, knowing that my dad had musical talent after playing the banjo and harmonica, my best friend said to me, ‘You should get a guitar. You would be good at it.’ I was 49 years old and I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He reminded me how I use to play my dad’s banjo. One year my wife asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her — ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I want a guitar.’”
While his pro shop business was keeping him busy it also afforded him time. In between providing youngsters and adults in Oswego with sharp skates, helmets, gloves, sticks, jerseys, pants and other equipment to play hockey, Kunzwiler scoured YouTube and began practicing his guitar.
“I had the perfect job for it,” Kunzwiler explained. “I came down to the shop and actually learned how to play through the internet. I listened to a lot of music on YouTube, music that I liked and thought I could maybe sing and play at the same time. I’m not a great guitar player but I can pick my way through it. I’m more entertainer than musician.”
It took almost 50 years before Kunzwiler’s “in-name only” musical talent surfaced in public, but “The PK Experience” was born.
In the beginning, The PK Experience was affectionately dubbed “The PK Experiment” by his close friends.
“As I was learning, I took the opportunity of going to play after someone else had played,” Kunzwiler remembered. “I would follow my cousin, John Kunzwiler (aka Johnny Rooster), who has a band — The Eldorado Kings. One night, he was playing at The Raven and I had the chance to play. Some of my friends came and I was awful. But everyone loved it.”
These days, friends who were there that night have told him he’s gotten much better.
“When I first started people were calling me ‘The PK Experiment.’ I think people came to those first few gigs because they wanted to see a train wreck and what this was all about,” he said.
Currently, The PK Experience, as well as his band, “PK and The ‘88s,” comprised of hockey friends who graduated from Oswego High School in 1988 — Tom Roman, Pat Galvin and Pete Sweeney — play about 18 gigs together in the summer. The former trooper and Oswego businessman also plays another 40 times solo including regular gigs at Canale’s, Gibbys, Steamers and other Central New York venues.
With business at “Clean Check” slowing down during the spring and summer months, Kunzwiler has more time to channel his inner McCartney.
“I’m pretty busy with it. We play in Oswego, Fulton, Fair Haven and we’re starting to get into playing church bazaars. We’ve had ups and downs but we’re still going strong and having fun,” he said.
Tom and Jerry Caraccioli have co-authored two books – Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team and BOYCOTT: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games. Also, they currently write a monthly column for USA HOCKEY Magazine – “In the Corners.”