Well it all started almost 3 yrs ago...When one of us decided it would be cool to form a band. I dont remember who exactly brought this notion up, but our friend Brandon (aka: "B") had a lot to do with it. None of us knew how to play instruments at the time except for jared. He knew a few "nice cords" on the guitar, but for the most part sucked at playing them. Brandon wrote all of our lyrics, jared played guitar, joe played bass, and jp played drums. B owned our first bass guitar and loaned it to joe to play. (jared bought it from B for $2 dollars after B didnt want it anymore... note: jared still has that piece of crap and it still works, albeit lots of battle damage) Our first song we ever wrote was called: "For Too Long." We attempted to record it several times, but never quite got it right because of a few vocal problems. Our band name at the time was Supernova. I have no idea why we choose that for a name... i think Oasis influenced it or something... But, capricious as always, we changed it like a week later to: Red 5. We liked this name so much that we wrote it all over B's parents shed that we had taken over for practicing.
Eventually Micah became interested in our band... however, we didnt really know what to do with him because all of the band positions were taken. I guess we must have practiced with him a few times because after awhile we stopped practicing with B altogether and before we knew it Micah had become our new vocalist! Soon after, Micah purchased his first bass.. the samick, and his first bass amp.. the guerilla (which he still has, and unfortunalty uses, sheesh!!). About the same time, Jared bought a new 75 watt fender amp. They were so excited that they had distortion that they practiced their fist punk song, "Jump Start," in the frabotta's garage for like an hr, while Jp rode his bike down the road to see how far we could be heard, hehe. Even though micah owned the bass, Joe played it for the band. With the addition of Micah we also decided to change our name once again... this time we called ourselves: Gauge. This was our first "real" band. We made up original songs and played a few gigs for friends and family. We also recorded at demo tape, entitled: "Use Your Head." ...i still can not believe we charged people $2 for it. We recorded it at Jp's church and it sounds soo bad. But i guess it shows our progress since then, right??
It was at this time that Jp's rents made vocal their distaste for "grunge" music (..what they call anything that has distortion) and the effect it had on Jp's personality. Huh? As a direct result of this, Jp was not allowed to play in our High School talent show and we turned to our friend Adam Black. We rawked out and had the plug pulled on us after we did not stop playing when were supposed to! (we thank Brad D for stalling Mrs. Horvath as long as he did, hehe!)
Well, after one particulary unsatisfying show at Heidi Loves, we decided to change our name... again! This time we called ourselves: Nothing At All. We were pretty unactive after this name change and we only played a few shows. After the summer of 99' jared left for BGSU.. The band didnt fall apart but Adam did leave it. Jp took over on the drums again and Joe changed the name of the band to F.Y.I. (For Your Information). They made up a lot of new music and played a few shows. Joe gave up bass and took to playing guitar and micah sang and played bass. Their style slowed down a bit and they added a few melodic acoustic songs to their set list.
After a yr at BGSU, Jared returned to Chardon in mid April and began to practice with the band again. He liked what he heard and he convinced them to get rid of their slow stuff and return to punk. As soon as Jared returned he began talking about playing out and getting into a decent studio for a recording session. Jp's parents once again kicked him out of the band (we miss ya jp!) ...We asked Adam to join again, and he accepted! But, only after making sure that he wasn't going to be left out again in exchange for welcoming back Jp. We promised him we wouldn't.
F.Y.I. had their first large show in July of 2000, when they were invited to play at camp Burton. They played along side a tight ska-punk band called Lipton. After the show the band was accosted by a group of girls, and for the first time it seemed like people acctually enjoyed our music!! It was a good feeling, plus the ladies thought we were hot, so that was tight as sweet. A few weeks after the show F.Y.I. began to recieve emails from another band called F.Y.I. (Face Your Individuality). They threatened to "burn us" if we ever attempted to go big. We took it as a compliment! ...But we changed our name anyhow, when we discovered no one acctually like the name F.Y.I in the first place. Which brings us to our current name: Knock Out!! We have recently recored at 7 song demo at Maple Sound Studio, entitled, "Summer's Gone, Winter's Here." You can pick up your copy for only $5!
