Rocker pursuing dream in Las Vegas

He died three times, but it didn't keep him from the stage.

He'd just turned 18, his band recently had landed its first gig opening for an international band and he had his whole life in front of him -- until suddenly, he didn't.

A few years back, young Australian rocker Sonny Truelove (aka Shaun Pretorius) was seriously hurt in a car accident -- his pulse actually stopping on several occasions -- injuring himself to the extent that he couldn't walk for nine months.

And yet weeks and weeks before he could stand without the aid of crutches, with his right leg still severely mangled, Truelove was playing shows again, opening for ska stalwarts Less Than Jake in a prior band.

"I basically put on a pair of really baggy pants and just said to the guys in the band, 'I can do it, just don't tell the promoters about my legs,' " Truelove recalls. "I just sort of limped onstage and played."

It was an early lesson on overcoming obstacles that comes in handy when attempting to build a career in the pothole-strewn music business.

Recently, Truelove relocated to Vegas to launch his latest project, The Closer, a promising, pop-inflected hard rock band that's currently in Virginia recording its debut with noted producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette, who has tracked such big names as Chevelle, Incubus and the Stone Temple Pilots as well as working with other Vegas rockers such as Escape the Fate, Lydia Vance and Otherwise.

Less than two years ago, Truelove was making waves with his previous band, the more abrasive The Valley, whose debut EP landed in the top 20 of the Australian charts. The group moved to the States for a few months in 2007, but troubles with their manager and financial woes did in the band.

"I came back from the States completely broke," says Truelove, 23, from the studio. "I think the only thing that I owned was an iPhone. I was living with my parents and they were kind of pushing me to go to college and study graphic design, and it's just not what I wanted to do. I realized that if you sit back and let people put your life in place, you're not going to ever be happy."

And so Truelove decided to give it another go, launching The Closer on his own, eventually catching the ear of Dylan Hanahan, head of the Vegas-based Kane Management, who'd bring Truelove back to America along with drummer Troels Thomasen. The rest of the band will be put together here.

And so for Truelove, basically, he has come to the city of sin looking for redemption instead.

"I just knew that if I wanted to take this seriously and really go for gold, then it was time to make the big move and actually start as a band in the States," he says. "I wouldn't have done it any other way."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.