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The story so far....
I guess this all began when I left my old band in New York City for musical differences. I realized that for the first time in my life I had more than just melodies and lyrics to offer the world of music. So with my newly bought Rickenbacker guitar and an old four track cassette recorder, I began to write what would later and 3,000 odd miles away become GHOST IN THE FLESH.
Shortly after I left my old band, I got an email from a band in Southern California that were looking for a lead singer. The band already had two guitarists in place and I was dead set on being a singer/guitarist(even though I needed alot of work on guitar). But then I heard a name and a reason to look further in to this opportunity.... enter: Terry Corso, former Alien Ant Farm guitarist. As soon as I heard Terry was one of the guitarists for this band in California I flew out and auditioned/hung out for about a month. Terry and I totally hit it off within 1/2 an hour of meeting each other when we bonded over our deep love for Jeff Buckley. I instantly knew that we were going to have a special musical bond together. Within a week of staying at Terry’s house during my "audition" we wrote a couple of songs together that made me excited about joining this band, so I joined. I moved to Southern California and put those songs that I had been writing back in NYC in the closet and forgot about them.
Within about four months of being in that band, Terry and I came to realize that the direction of the band was not satisfying our musical taste buds. One day I got up the nerve to tell him about the songs that I had begun writing in my tiny closet of a bedroom back in NYC. I showed them to him and we began working on them in his home studio. I wrote a song called "Nice to meet you"(later to be called "Killer on the radio") and showed it to Terry, we reworked it and recorded it and were like two little kids in a candy store with the outcome. This was probably the definitive start of our new band.
As the months went on we tried to write and record as much as we could around Terry’s touring schedule(Terry had recently taken a job as guitarist for POWERMAN 5000). Things in my life started falling apart and I was a bit lost in who/where I was. So I moved to luxurious Sacramento, CA to try and get my head together. For about two months straight I locked myself in a bedroom, turned off MTV, turned off the radio and just wrote what I was hearing in my head. I sat in front of the computer and recorded until I was drained. What came out was some of the most exciting, honest music I had heard in a long time and I was proud. I sent a CD off to Terry and we made sometime to get together in his studio to record some of the songs.
Eventually, I had to get a band together and unfortunately Terry still had commitments with Powerman 5000. Oddly enough through a mutual friend in NYC I met a local Sacramento guitarist by the name of Jack Sinamian(formerly of Die Trying). We went through numerous drummers and bassists but finally found the perfect rhythm section. I actually met Mikey Atilano at an acoustic Open mic night I had worked up the nerve to do. I only knew Mikey from his badass acoustic covers of Johnny Cash and Metallica’s "Sanitarium", I had know idea he was a bassist. But he agreed to come down and tryout and I was floored and knew right away he was the one. I later came to find out that he was a local punk rock celeb of sorts having been in longtime punk/ska band Lesdystics. I met Simon "Danny" Nevezi when he was playing drums in his prior local band Rip Nicky. When it came time for us to look for another drummer because we hadn’t found "the one" yet( and I wasn’t settling for less),
it just so happened that Danny’s band was dismantling. Danny came down to the tryout and played with pure energy and heart, which is exactly what we needed.
After playing numerous shows and recording a demo with this line-up. It started to come to our attention that this might not be the band for our guitarist Jack and after months of trying to write together we realized he was not going to cut it in this band. Jack left in January of 2007 and shortly after Jack’s departure I began talking to Terry about the possibility of working together again and getting back on track from where we had left off. Luckily, he was getting ready to leave Powerman and was as excited as I was at the thought of returning to the fold.
When Terry, Mikey, Danny and I got in a room together it was in truth a little rocky because we were all a bit nervous and excited at the same time. After all, Terry and I hadn’t even heard/played some of these songs live before. But that first jam was full of energy, excitement and pure fun and we all knew it was the ultimate line-up. So with a few shows under our belts, a ton of rehearsals and our new manager Dennis Sanders we took most of the summer weekends of 2007 and recorded our fist ep(between playing shows with Veruca Salt, Unwritten Law and Shiny Toy Guns) at 4th St. recording studios (Fiona Apple, No Doubt, Incubus, Alien Ant Farm etc.) in Santa Monica, CA with Terry in the producers chair. We were fortunate enough to get Dave Schiffman (the Mars Volta, Avenged Sevenfold) to mix the amazing sounds we captured on tape and to bring them to the next level. Our first EP was just recently pressed and will be available soon on our myspace page and through the internet. Which pretty much brings us up to date! So turn up your speakers or put your headphones on and preview the future of true rock music on our myspace jukebox.
peace and love-
Aaronlee
SPREAD THE WORD!
SPREAD THE WORD!
