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By Jud Cost
How "San Jose" can you get? The eye-popping, black-and-white 1966 press photo for San Jose's newest rock 'n' roll sensations-Count Five-was taken on the front lawn of the Winchester Mystery House with all five of the boys decked out in Count Dracula capes and puffy white shirts. You could almost see the ghost of Sarah Winchester in the background, rolling her eyes, then lowering her veil and tiptoeing back into her 160-room refuge.

Count Five-lead singer and harmonica player Kenn Ellner, rhythm guitar/vocalist John "Sean" Byrne, lead guitarist John "Mouse" Michalski, bassist Roy Chaney and drummer Craig "Butch" Atkinson-would shock the world with one titanic hit, then spend the rest of its collective life either touring coast-to-coast or rolling tape in a recording studio, trying to find lightning in a bottle a second time.

"Psychotic Reaction," a searing slice of garage rock, was the song that punched Count Five's ticket to immortality. At a rehearsal in early 1966, all members of the band composed Psychotic Reaction. The song started off as an instrumental jam between Ellner, Chaney and Michalski and was composed in Atkinson's living room at the beginning of the rehearsal. Ellner was breaking in a new harmonica for the first time and Chaney and Michalski were jamming and composing. The harmonica was a C harmonica, so the jam was in G. Atkinson and Byrne joined the rehearsal and added to the jam and composition. Many weeks prior to this monumental rehearsal Byrne had a psychology class at San Jose City College. The lecturer was discussing psychotic reactions and a friend and classmate Ron Lamb thought it would be a good name for a band. Byrne shared this idea with the band but it was decided that it would be a better name for a song. By September of 1966 the tune had peaked at number 5 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Count Five rose from the ashes of a 1964 British Invasion-style combo called the Squires, all of whose members attended Pioneer High School in San Jose. Michalski originally went to Blackford High but moved in with the Ellner's so he could grow his hair and play rock 'n' roll. "Pioneer was cool in those days," says Ellner. "Other schools made you cut your hair."

When they added Byrne, a recent émigré from Ireland, they changed the name to Count Five. Ellner was a huge fan of "Creature Features"-style monster movies and, with Byrne's help, came up with the band name as a nod to the legendary film vampire. "It was supposed to have a dual meaning," says Ellner: "Count as in Dracula and Count as in count the five of us." The puffy shirts idea, he adds, came from the 1963 film "Tom Jones" starring Albert Finney.

With "Psychotic Reaction" released on the day Ellner and Chaney graduated from high school-blazing up the charts and the ink barely dry on their contract with Los Angeles' Double Shot Records, Count Five hit the road during the glorious summer of '66. On a nonstop tour that crisscrossed the entire country, they shared stages with the cream of the current pop world: the Beach Boys, Martha & the Vandellas, the Animals, Dave Clark Five, Sonny & Cher, the Hollies, the Temptations, and the Byrds.

Byrne recalls a landmark night at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara California in 1966. "This new band called the Doors, with a lead singer named Jim Morrison, opened the show, then we played, and the headliner was Them with Van Morrison. Count Five also logged plenty of fabulous nights back home in swinging South Bay teen venues like San Jose's Loser's South, Sunnyvale's Bold Knight and The Continental in Santa Clara and most notably the Cinnamon Tree in Redwood City/San Carlos.

Count Five appeared on both of Dick Clark's towering television twosome: "Where The Action Is!" and "American Bandstand," the former filmed at Clark's house in the Hollywood Hills. "Dick actually helped me unload my drums and carry them in," Atkinson (who died in 2004) said in 1994.
It was on one of the Dick Clark broadcasts that Clark informed American audiences of a startling revelation, first reported in the San Jose Mercury News, that the band would be giving up one million dollars worth of bookings that fall to return to school. Clark, needless to say, lauded their sensible decision. "We also had to stay in school to stay out of the draft," adds Michalski.

With all these forces at work-parental pressure to stay in school, the Selective Service System and the lack of a dynamite follow-up single-it's not surprising that Count Five's days together were numbered.

"Psychotic Reaction" has been featured in films "Drugstore Cowboy" and "Less Than Zero" and has done very well on Classic Rock radio. Being named one of the 500 most influential rock 'n' roll records of all time by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is one sure sign that the song-and the San Jose band who played it-will live forever.