The Sunrays Story by Eddy Medora

We were called the Renegades. We were a garage band rehearsing in my parents home in Pacific Palisades. We were in 7th and 8th grade. I saw a band perform called the Riptides - they had a local hit called Machine Gun. My name is Eddy Medora and I was the lead guitar player for the Sunrays. After I saw the reponse from the crowd, I knew I wanted to start a band. We played all over West L. A. There were five of us - Marty, Darrol, Mike, Ricky, and myself. We were doing pretty well when Mike moved away. Darrol also left. In the first year of high school, I met Steve and Vince. These guys did not have a band. They were both good musicians. They asked if they could join our band. We auditioned them. After we heard them play, I knew they had all of our votes. So we continued to perform throughout California as the Renegades. I played saxaphone, Marty played keyboard, Ricky played drums, Steve played lead guitar, and Vince played bass and rhythm guitar. I changed high schools. I enrolled in Hollywood Professional. In 1963, I met Carl and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. At that time the Beach Boys had ten double-sided hits on the charts. Carl heard our band, The Renegades, and thought we were fabulous. Carl mentioned us to his dad, Murray Wilson, who was looking for another group to manage. Carl set the audition up. We were at the Beach Boys home in Hawthorne until 4 AM. He said if we listened to him we would have a hit record in six weeks. Murray told us to go home and write songs. "I Live for the Sun" was our first hit. Steve left the group at this time to try and make it on his own. He was replaced by my friend, Byron. "Andrea" was our second hit. All these releases were on Tower Records label. The label was created just for us so we would not be on The Beach Boys label, which was Capital Records.