Gotham Road

Band History: In the fall of 1995 Michale Graves was nineteen and recording a demo in Lodi, New Jersey with his little known band Mopes when the owner mentioned that some of his friends were looking for a singer and that he might be what they were looking for. After some contemplation, Michale made a phone call to schedule an audition that would ultimately change the course of his life forever.
On Halloween night in 1995 after a brief appearance on stage at The Roseland Ballroom in New York City, he became the lead singer and played his first official gig at a club called Coney Island High with one of the most legendary punk rock bands of all time, The Misfits. During Michale's six year tenure with The Misfits, they headlined and supported tours with bands such as Marilyn Manson, Megadeth, Anthrax, Gwar and Life of Agony. During this time they released three major albums. In 1996 The Misfits recorded their first album in almost twenty years entitled "American Psycho", which was released by Geffen Records. The Misfits next release was a live album entitled, "Evil Live II". It was a collection of live songs taken from shows on the relentless and very successful American Psycho Tour. October 1999 marked a third studio album called "Famous Monsters" released by Roadrunner Records. That year, Japan's premier rock n roll publication, "Burrn Magazine", voted Michale Graves "Vocalist of the Year". Famous Monsters went on to become the biggest selling title ever for Roadrunner Japan.
Michale appeared in several films including George Romero's film "Bruiser" and Insane Clown Posses' "Big Money Hustlas" which was released by Island Def Jam and held the nations .1 home video sales position for weeks. Michale and The Misfits released music videos of their own including the "American Psycho" video which was listed on the Sonicnet chart at .2, book-ended by Backstreet Boys videos at .1 & .3. The videos had also repeatedly been on top of several online charts, listed as the "most downloaded videos on the net" with online outlets like Sonicnet. "Dig Up Her Bones" was premiered on MTV's 120 minutes. Aside from his movie appearances, Michale made television appearances on Ted Turners' "WCW Monday Nitro", "Thursday Thunder" and a pair of Pay-Per-Views. He also appeared in "WCW Magazine", including a centerfold and an exclusive write-up about the band along with their wrestling partner Vampiro.
After his departure with The Misfits Michale immediately co-founded a new band with fellow ex-Misfits drummer Dr. Chud simply called Graves. They independently released "Web of Dharma" supported by two American tours. However the band split up and left Michale with alot of original material that was left unheard. Loki, who was a part of the Graves road crew, joined Mike and started collaborating on music for the band, but the end result was a transformation in the style of music. This change was a contributing factor to the events that would later pave the way for the new band called Gotham Road.
Loki began as a guitarist in the NJ band Angelsin. He joined in 1997 and quickly made his presence felt as the band began to write songs that would later develop into songs that were released in 1999 on an album titled "The Soundtrack to Your Death". The album quickly grew popular in NJ and resulted in airplay on regular rotation on 89.5 WSOU. This was followed by a contest held by WSOU for unsigned acts around the country. Over 500 bands participated and only 10 were picked to be judged on their live performance. Angelsin made it to the top ten and finished second overall in the contest. Unfortunate circumstances slowed down the momentum that Angelsin had worked so hard for and personal problems for other members caused the demise of the band.
Bad luck would not keep Loki down and out as he quickly joined with close friends Mister Monster in 2000. Loki played a number of shows for Mister Monster, but never recorded any music with them. During and soon after his time with Mister Monster he filled in for the band Spy Society 99, which featured ex-Misfits and Empire Hideous' Myke Hideous. Loki left both bands in 2001 because of his desire to use his creative abilities. While working on his original material he also worked as part of the Graves crew as a guitar tech. Loki's growing bond with Michale during the Graves break up kept them close together and was one of the reasons for the union between the two. Together they wouldn't have to look too far to find the musicians for the new project as they recruited JV to play bass.
JV had spent three years with the self proclaimed "Boo-Wop" band Mister Monster. In that time he filled the role of both bassist and guitarist, which included two east coast tours and countless other shows. The bands cult following grew out of control quickly, making it difficult to keep up with orders for their self titled demo from fans across the country, all while earning the respect of other top bands in their genre. In late 2001, the band independently financed and released the full length disk "Over Your Dead Body". JV played both bass and guitar on the record. Mister Monster's "Over Your Dead Body" was set to be re-released in November of 2003 through Hell's Hundred Records. Songs from this effort can also be found on several compilations and on a soundtrack for an independent film called "Girls Night Out", which featured the two music videos "This Night I Call Bad Luck" and "Gore Whore" through Cinema Sky Productions. JV left the band in late 2002 to pursue Gotham Road , The three of them then decided to recruit Paul Lifeless.
Paul Who? Paul had been cycling through the North Jersey underground punk scene with High Beam and A Lifeless Alliance. He Recorded 2 EP's with ALA but both had limited pressing and availability. After the 2nd EP he started filling in on drums for Mister Monster for a couple of local shows and an east coast tour. His unique style and playing ability is what opened the eyes of everyone around him and it earned him an audition for Gotham Road. It took just one rehearsal for Mike, Loki and JV to make up their minds that Paul was the man for the job. Paul decided to split from ALA and joined the band on December 3rd 2002.
It didn't take long for this quartet to get started. Under the assumed name of Graves they recorded a 5 song demo in January of 2003. The demo consisted of 3 songs from the "Web of Dharma" era that were re-recorded and 2 previously unreleased songs. As the band continued to write and grow musically the decision was made to change the name to Gotham Road. After 4 months of organizing, writing, and rehearsing Gotham Road was ready to take the stage and they played their first show on May 30th, 2003 at the Lamour's Nightclub in Brooklyn NY.
In June they started working on their second demo, which contained 7 songs, and prepared for their first US tour in support of the demo. With limited promotional tools and very little financial help, the month long coast to coast tour was still a huge success. So was the music as it has sold over 2000 copies and counting in just over 4 months. They have received over 10,000 hits on MP3.com since the release of their demo. Since the launching of the website (www.GothamRoad.com) in April of 2003 it has received over 500,000 hits while averaging just over 2,400 hits a day. In September 04 one of the most respected college radio stations in the country, WSOU Seton Hall's Pirate Radio, put Gotham Road on regular rotation. After only several days on rotation Gotham Road debuted at .30 on the Charts and they were one of the top 5 most requested bands. As the weeks gone by Gotham Road climbed the charts progressively climbed the charts for 6 straight weeks and in the top 15 while having held the .2 spot only behind A Perfect Circle.
After countless one off gigs in the tri state area, Gotham Road returned to the studio in early 2004 to record the as of yet unreleased tracks "On My Way", "Drain", and "All The Cars Behind Me". This Recording was followed with the lengthy 60 city "Mouning Light Tour". The tour was followed by various one off shows. To date Gotham Road is in hiatus form.
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