In the beginning of 1998 five friends started jamming in a garage. Ian Fowles, Jarrod Alexander, Efrem Schulz, Paul and Jim Miner were the five friends, and out of the remnants of Clint, CleanX and the D-Cons (our former bands), Death By Stereo was born. We practiced in Jarrod's garage for a few months and then decided to record a demo.
We recorded five songs at For The Record Studios, where Paul worked. Out of the five songs, four of them went on to be included on the album "If Looks Could Kill, I'd Watch You Die," and the one that wasn't on the album will never see the light of day again. After we released the demo, we started to play a few shows around the Southern California area. We played our first show on March 5th, 1998 and have been putting all of our energies in to playing and recording since then.
After we had a few shows and a demo under our belt, we knew that there was no self respecting punk rock band that didn't have a release on vinyl. So we recorded three more songs, two of which were released on the "Fooled By Your Smile" 7". The third song was released later on the "Incompatible 2" compilation and also on the "No-Fi Trash" compilation on Floppy Cow Records in Switzerland. The first 7" prompted more and more shows. A few friends started to come to shows to actually see us, so we were pretty excited. Soon after the 7" was released, Ian our original guitar player decided to leave the band to go on a mission for his church, so we enlisted Keith Barney of Adamantium and Throwdown fame to take Ian's place.
The next logical thing for us was to try to get a record label to put out a record for us, so we didn't have to pay for it ourselves. The only record label we could have wanted to be on, Indecision, seemed interested, and actually agreed to put out an album for us. So we wrote a few more songs and went back to For The Record to lay down the tracks for the album. "If Looks Could Kill, I'd Watch You Die" was released May 15th, 1999 and everything looked great. We then toured over the entire US in the summer of 1999.
A few more months of playing shows around the Southern California area things got increasingly better. Around that time, in the fall of '99, Keith left the band to pursue his other bands Throwdown and Eighteen Visions, and Jarrod decided to move to Boston to pursue music full time at the Berklee School Of Music. It seemed to pose quite a problem but luck was on our side. We asked an old friend Tim Bender if he would fill in for some shows that we already had booked when Jarrod left, and he said he would do it. At the same time Eyelid was breaking up, so we asked Dan Palmer if he would also like to play in our band, and he was up to the task. After a few practices we started playing shows with the new lineup.
Somehow we seemed to spark the interest of Epitaph Records. On one of the shows we did on a winter tour with Straight Faced and Ignite, Brett from Epitaph came to see us. He said he was in to putting out a record for us, so we were really excited. We started working on writing new songs for a new album. We did a few more short tours in the winter of '99 and spring of 2000 before we went in to record. In May, of 2000 we went back to to the studio to start recording. We finished recording, and then embarked for our summer tour of 2000. Bane and Adamantium were our touring mates, which made it the most fun tour we ever had, and might ever have. After we came back from tour, we realized that we needed to remix the record. Although, it seriously delayed the release of the record, we are really happy because it came out much better.
The record finally came out in January of 2001 after an anxious wait. Soon after that, in the spring of 2001, we embarked upon our most rigorous tour yet, 10 1/2 weeks around the US and Canada. We did the bulk of the tour with Sick Of It All, BoySetsFire and the Hope Conspiracy. The dates in Canada were with our good friends AFI, as well as some new friends in Rise Against, Nicotine (from Japan)and the Planet Smashers. The tour was amazing, and even though it was quite long, it was incredibly fun. However an unfortunate byproduct of being on the road so long, we decided to part ways with our drummer Tim. We have since enlisted the drumming skills of our good friend Todd Hennig of Heckle and Seven Years War fame. We are about to leave for another US tour with Good Riddance and Kill Your Idols, and then we are off to Europe with Good Riddance shortly thereafter. We can't wait, it's going to be an opportunity of a lifetime. So that's where we are now, as of July of 2001. The saga will continue... |
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