My name is mark and I'm from Burgess Hill,but I'm currently living in Haywards Heath.I'm a baker for sainsburys and I'm currently working towards my NVQ in Retail Baking.
TaprootAnn Arbor, MI's own Taproot sent their demo to Limp Bizkit frontman/business entrepreneur Fred Durst in 1998, not even thinking Durst would call them back personally. To their surprise, he promised the alterna-punk metal four-piece the world. But Durst obviously took too long to deliver the goods, for Taproot -- frontman Stephen Richards, guitarist Michael DeWolf, bassist Philip Lipscomb, and drummer Jarrod Montague -- landed a sweet deal with Atlantic Records. Durst felt betrayed and heavily cursed the band, but Taproot wasn't fazed by such rude behavior. Their Velvet-Hammer/Atlantic debut, Gift was released in June 2000 and unveiled the band's tough thrash sound, heavy hooks, and beer soaked vocals. Thanks to support from Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack, Taproot scored a spot at the second stage on the 2000 Ozzfest tour. Two years later, Rolling Stone hailed Taproot as "the next contenders for the new-metal crown." Indeed, Taproot was in the running. They spent seven months in Los Angeles recording the fierce, introspective Gift follow-up Welcome, and the press took notice. Vanity Fair pegged Richards (and Taproot) as one to watch in their 2002 Music Issue. The album eventually peaked at #17 on the Billboard 200. Blue-Sky Research appeared in August 2005. Produced by Welcome helmer Toby Wright, the album also included three songs co-written with Billy Corgan. ~ MacKenzie Wilson, All Music GuideAfter a couple of years off the rock radar, Taproot has set a Sept. 16 release date for its fourth national release, "Our Long Road Home," which also marks the Michigan quartet's debut for Velvet Hammer after three previous releases on Atlantic."It was somewhat mutual," frontman Stephen Richards tells Billboard.com. "At the end of the day it was their decision to let us go. But our whole last album [2005's 'Blue-Sky Research'] our management was pretty unhappy with Atlantic. We were a pretty successful band, and we kinda felt that was kind of our doing. It was the hard work of touring, and even though we had a radio department at Atlantic we always had to go outside and get our own people to help push us. So we were more than happy to find something new."Although discouraged -- "Blue-Sky Research" sold less than 200,000 copies after its predecessor, 2002's "Welcome," went gold -- Richards says he and his bandmates "knew we weren't going to stop." He and guitarist Mike DeWolf began working on new material during the last half of 2006 and made things "more collaborative" with bassist Phil Lipscomb and drummer Jarrod Montague. DeWolf rather than Richards wrote lyrics for one track, "As One," while a local female singer guests on "It's Natural." And Richards, who started out playing drums, hits the skins on "Hand That Holds True.""It's pretty diverse," Richards reports. "We were kind of done almost a year ago and had 10 good songs, but we didn't cover our tracks as much as we'd like, so we went back in to make sure we could have at least a full-length album with 12 tracks, and we wanted to have another song or do just for live shows and our die-hard fans who really want us to...rock.""Our Long Road Home" was produced by Tim Patalin (Sponge, the Myriad) and recorded at his studio in a converted barn in Saline, Mich. The first single will be "Wherever I Stand," while Taproot is streaming "You're Not Home Tonight" on its site.Richards says Taproot will play "some random shows" during the summer before the album's release but will hit the road in earnest once it's out. "Strategically you don't want to drop off the face of the Earth for two years," he acknowledges. "But I've noticed at the shows we've been doing that it's really cool to get back out, like a new start, kind of. Each time it's been like, 'Wow, I missed doing that.'"So while it's a shame we had to be off the map so long, it makes it really, really new and fun again."
