Oklahoma City, 2011 – Ours began like any good punk fairytale should – with a police standoff… Our practice, cut short by the shouts of fully-armored cops with automatic weapons ushering us away from a suicide-in-progress just a few yards from where we blasting through the handful of songs we had crafted through the previous month. We even made the evening news that night. Seriously, Google it.
Well, we lost our practice space after the SWAT invasion and a few complaints from the old lady down the street who hates bass. So, that was it. No space; no jam… No jam; no band. We took a couple of weeks off before stumbling across the PERFECT jam spot.
No longer hampered by time restraints, noise ordinances or distractions, we got good… really good, man. It was the kind of good where we would look at each other after each song and laugh. If you’ve ever been in a band you know what we mean. It was rad!
So, we had enough music for a 30-minute set. Naturally, we should have booked a show at that point to see if anybody would really give a crap, but we didn’t. Instead, in February, we helped our friend Mike Kennerty break in his new home studio - tearing through our 3 best songs that soon became our demo/first EP (the red one). He worked his ass of for us, and what he got out of us in the studio was nothing short of brilliant… damn-near perfect.
With that out of the way, we dug in. The shows began March 5 and snowballed from there, but not before we parted ways with a dear friend on guitar and added Danny Black to the gang. In 2011, we played with some great bands at some cool venues and met a ton of nice folks (we thank most of them below). We started getting fans from all over the world, we got a little merch to push and even found time to record a second EP – both still free through Death To False Hope Records. We even found time to get into a little trouble along the way. Looking back, 2011 was a blast… and we’re just getting started.
Now, it’s on to year 2, and it’s gonna be a big one. We’ll be hitting the road more often – armed with a rip-roarin’ set of non-stop noise and aggression. We have some issues to work out, and we’re using your ears to do it. Sorry in advance. But you kinda deserve it.
OK… Let’s give some shoutouts:
A big thanks to Mike @ The Kennerty Household for his never-ending support and button pushing, Justin Perkins @ The Mystery Room for mixing and mastering both EP’s. Also, thanks to Kendall Stephens @ Red Audio Werks for helping us weed out some of our more undesirable songs.
The following People and Orgs got behind our music, and there’s really nothing cooler. So, thanks to Death To False Hope Records, D’Addario & Pro Mark for the goodies, Dying Scene, BOMB Productions, Amp Magazine, Austin Town Hall, Stay True Music & The Edmond Records Street Teamers (for the constant tweets), Dave Brown AKA OK Lefty, Punknews.org and all the blogs who picked up our EP’s and wrote a glowing review…
Here our some bands that helped us out in 2011: The Anchor, The Smoking Popes, White Wives, Romero, Lizard Police, Against The Grain, The Meatmen, Triple Fang, Red City Radio (again for the crisp tweets), Over /Under Stars & Gutters, Canadian Rifle, Roustabouts, Screeching Weasel, Broadway Calls, The Dirty Mugs, The Muck Savages, Violent Affair, Cerebral Ballzy, Grasseaters, The City Lives, False Positive, The Slow Death, The Rude Amps.
Venues you should support: The Conservatory, The HiLo, The Eclipse, VZD’s, The Blue Note, Bad Granny’s, The Sound Pony, The Roxy, Brass Bell, Woody’s & Free Tulsa.
Thanks to KMSA, The Spy and RSU for playing us on the radio, Cassie Stover @ Hudson Tattoo for the banner, Sire Press for the great design work throughout the year, Chris & Trevor Hultner for the press, Legionnairre for the shirts, Ross Adams for the pics and our Jerry, Kerry, Levi, Ty & Dan for your constant attendance!
Also, a special thanks to the curator of The Bath House for providing the most amazing practice spot any of us have ever had.
Thanks for a great year,
Matt Owsley – Vox/Guitar
Dave Klein – Bass
John Hernandez – Drums
Danny Black – Guitar/Vox
They Stay Dead!
