The HATERZ first crawled outta the womb in 2002 as Chicago's one and only Black old skool punk rock band. Chicago's only Black punk band for all we know.
Meanwhile, visit our friends sites:
Official Website of The Afropunk Film Documentary Film Site
Black Rock Rebel/ blackrock.vze.com
Small Change Chicago HipHop
D-FE French-African Hardcore
http://www.soundclick.com/thehaterzBand History (The Long Version):
The Haterz technically first started in the Summer of 2002 when two brothas, Fred Dredd and calvinchaos met through calvins girlfriend Minti Mshushio. Over the phone they exchanged ideas a few times, decided on the name Ghetto Hoedown (inspired by mixing hardcore punk with the feel of fast black gospel music), and finally met in person on the day of their first practice. The first jam session was at Columbia College music building, where both Freddy and Minty had attended college. The then drummer was a young white B-boy, Reagan, who was also in an aspiring hiphop group. Freddy Dredd was in a reggae band called Soularize, and calvinchaos was doing his modern new wave solo project X-Patriot, while jamming in the noise/trashpunk duo,The Fuckfarts.The first couple of jam sessions at Columbia went well. The band first jammed some dark reggae and funk riffs, and began to move toward sludgey stoner metal. However job schedules and commitments to their other bands soon began to get in the way of Ghetto Hoedown practice, and the band went on unofficial hiatus.When things finally solidified a little, schedule-wise(in late 2003)Freddy and Calvin decided to try again. Calvin called up Reagan a few times to try and set up jam sessions, but between working full time and his hiphop project, Reagan just couldnt juggle his schedule enough to make time for Ghetto Hoedown.Calvin put ads in newspapers, on internet message boards, on flyers, and anywhere else he could thing of, advertising for a fast drummer for an all-black hardcore punk rock band. Months went by, and nothing seemed to work. The two remaining members of Ghetto Hoedown were determined, but pissed at the frustration of finding black musicians into rock. Even in a city the size of Chicago, things were looking pretty bleak.One day calvinchaos was partying with some friends from the Afropunk online community, and while in a drunken stupor, watching tapes of the Dave Chappelle Show, a friend (JC) suggested that Ghetto Hoedown change their name to The Haterz, after watching The Haters Ball skit on the Chappelle Show. After staggering home drunk and 2 hours of sleep, calvinchaos immediately called up Freddy, they laughed and decided to rechristen G.H. as The Haterz.Calvin once again put ads in online message boards, bulletin boards, newspapers, flyers, etclooking for a drummer of African descent to play in the band. After a few months of this, the ads began to draw a few replies, many from non-black drummers who wanted to join the band. These were all turned down, as Calvin told them I want to make a statement with the black lineup, to show that we can do an all black punk band, and inspire other young black rock fans to do the same.One day an e-mail response from a certain Ian Fidel, (an avid supporter of the local Chicago punk scene) caught Calvins eye, and he set up a jam session at a local studio/practice space named FabSound. Soon after, an associate of the band, Todd Swopefrom the up and coming hiphop group Small Change, also decided to join the lineup.Fredd was unable to make the first jam session of the newly rechristened Haterz. They blew through 3 originals from past members projects and one or 2 cover songs. The session was raw and full of energy. An attempt was made to record a portion of the jam session, but only one song came out well enough to hear. After years of frustration in forming the band, that was good enough. The Haterz were officially ready to start writing material, and preparing for live shows.After the one jam session Todd decided to devote his time to his up and coming hip-hop band Small Change.A few months later, after being thrown out of a few jam spots due to various band members not showing up or being late for practice, calvin and Freddy decided to start to audition drummers (being that IanFidel was only a temp drummer and amazingly an even worse drummer than calvinchaos (sorry Ian)! None of the people who said they wanted to try out for the band came through so out of a combination of frustration and inspiration came the concept to carry on as a duo as "The Show Must Go On"Soon after, we got our boy Brian (Jarhead) to play guitar for us, starting around the end of June. His Guitar playing really help flesh out the sound and brings a lot of energy into our vibe.A few weeks later, this cat Reese joined the band on drums. Let's just say he ain't in the band no more. We had Jimmy Sludge from (formerly in Chi-town HxC band The Injured) fillin in on drums for a while, but we got sick of him shortly after he cancelled his appearance at a show in the burbs a few hours before we was supposed to play.Stay tuned...Thus, was born...The Haterz.
