Ash Avenue at Wise Fools' Pub 7/2006
Ash Avenue formed in April of 2005, but their history spans over a decade. Rob Merz, Jim Brennan and Chad Noyes met in college at Iowa State University in 1994. They immediately clicked over a mutual love for music and quickly started playing in a few bands together, eventually forming their first successful band, Good Things in 1996.
After a year of local touring, Good Things recorded their debut album, Fit the Groove, in 1997. They found some success throughout Iowa, Chicago, Missouri and Minnesota and also saw some radio play on college and small market stations across the mid-west. After a year or two of touring to support Fit the Groove, Good Things split up due to members in the band relocating to separate cities.
In 2001, Rob and Chad both moved to Chicago and right away they hooked up with Jim to start something new. While searching for a new drummer and singer, they were lucky enough to find two talented individuals; one being amazing drummer Michael Mooshey, formerly from the Chicago band The Fez (and before that Seventh Heaven). After several months and several arguments, Rob, Chad, Jim and Mike started to realize that their new singer had differences in the artistic direction in which to take the band, so they decided to part ways. As fate would have it, Jim was living with a friends younger brother, Johnny Alletto.
Johnny was the lead singer of the band Jank, was a trained accapella singer and had been performing acoustic shows for several years around the Chicago-land area. The five of them hit it off and started jamming on songs they had written over the last few years. After a couple months, a good collection of an albums-worth of songs had been born. They decided to name themselves after where it all started ... Ash Avenue; the street where Rob, Chad and Jim lived in college.
Unfortunately, the final band member line up was not settled completely. In the summer of 2006, Mike Mooshey decided to hit the road with a previous band and left Ash Avenue, remaining a great friend to the band. With multiple shows quickly approaching during the summer busy season, Ash Avenue needed a drummer fast. The band was connected with Eric Ellis who had recently moved to Chicago from Cincinnati where he had played in numerous local bands. Once in Chicago, Eric hit the ground running with Ash Avenue, and never looked back.
Ash Avenues brand of rootsy pop-rock has recently started to grab quite a following and their new, debut CD "And Then We Ignite" has garnered numerous rave reviews.
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