Whitfield Crane and Klaus Eichstadt grew up in Palo Alto, California, a middle-to-upper-class white suburbia where, according to Klaus, everybody complains about a little bit of noise. Klaus and Whit (short for Whitfield) met when Whit’s father mulched the Eichstadt-cat with the lawn mower. Klaus, whose father is a German and whose mother is from Argentina, and Whit became close friends in junior high school. Whit lived with his mother, and because that wasn’t a good thing, he and a friend called James moved to Santa Barbara after high school.He ended up in a band and recorded a demo, that sounded great. Klaus had also recorded a demo and wanted Whit to sing on it. But Whit only wanted to do that if Klaus came to Santa Barbara and be in Whit’s band. Klaus was pretty set in Palo Alto, where he had a girlfriend and lived with his parents. He delivered Domino’s pizza and worked with his dad, shipping and receiving video-equipment and making simple repairs. But eventually, in February 1990, he moved to Whit’s Victorian house in Isla Vista, a college town near Santa Barbara. The house had view on the ocean, and Whit and Klaus lived there with a bunch of friends. Klaus started playing piano when he was 10, and his dad bought him his first guitar. Later he shined college and spent all his money on equipment. Whit and Klaus both started guitar lessons at the same time, but Whit only made it a few weeks because he was very lazy and couldn’t stand not being as good as Eddy van Halen yet.Whit decided to be a singer because that was easier.
At the time when Klaus joined Whit, the band was called Overdrive, and the other members were Eric Phillips on guitar, Phil Hildengaertner on bass, and Mark Davis on drums. Mark had replaced John Spaulding who had gone crazy. Soon afterwards, they kicked out Eric Phillips, who had written most of the Overdrive songs, and the band started to go into different direction with Klaus and Whit writing most of the material. At about this time guitarist Roger Lahr joined the band. He was the only member of UKJ who actually went to college.Bassist Cordell Crockett replaced Phil on April 1st, 1991. Cordell was a roadie for Love/Hate and had sold computer printer ribbons on the phone, worked on cars, tinting windows, installing car stereos and alarms. Cordell’s father was a drummer and his mother plays piano. Cordell himself used to play trombone in high school. He started when he was 10, in fourth grade music class, but picked up the bass two years later, when he was 12. The boyfriend of Cordell’s sister had him playing in clubs, jazz, disco and weddings. He kept playing trombone for a while but eventually the bass took over.Drummer Mark Davis got his first drum kit from his mom when he was 10. He practiced all day with his friends in his room. After high-school in Santa Barbara, Mark worked as a grocery store clerk wearing a short haired wig for more than a year, after his boss got on his case about being a musician. Remarkable thing by the way, was that every member of UKJ was the youngest in their family.Soon after Roger had joined the band, they changed their name to Ugly Kid Joe, a parody of LA glam band Pretty Boy Floyd. Both bands were like night and day, there were no similarities whatsoever. UKJ was supposed to do a gig with them in Santa Barbara, but Pretty Boy Floyd cancelled the show. They had it printed that they were going to be Ugly Kid Joe just for that gig, just because they felt that they represented the opposite of Pretty Boy Floyd. And although the gig got cancelled, they decided to keep the name: Ugly Kid Joe.The band had gone through various managers, including Steve Sahlein, Will Carlin and finally, Dennis Rider. Billy Morgan was UKJ’s tour manager for their entire career.
