Biography
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Years Active
2004 – present (20 years)
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Founded In
Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States
1) We recorded a 7” single (Piles backed with Gimmie What I Want/Buk’s Song) that got us a profile in the first issue of Spin magazine (thanks Regina Joskow) and some label interest. We figured we would need a producer to help us with the “Big Breakthrough”. We met Handsome Dick Manitoba from interviewing him for Mark’s fanzine “The Poisoned Pen”, and Manitoba steered us to Andy Shernoff. Andy worked with us to try and meld the “punk thing” with a sheen of professionalism (the jury’s still out on that). He took us to Springfield, Missouri to work with the legendary engineer Lou Whitney. We recorded through endless stacks of amps and high-end gear. We came back to NYC, and mastered the tapes at RCA studios. The best of the best! Unfortunately, Soul Desire was released straight to the cut-out bins and became our only release at that time. We toured out to Atlanta and back while re-assessing the “commercial breakthrough” approach. We went back into small studios in NYC to use what we learned, and record what we felt was “The Alter Boys’ Sound”. The band played bigger clubs like Maxwell’s in Hoboken opening for Soul Asylum, and kept recording to try and capture that elusive “sound”. We played our last gig at The Continental Divide for a live recording of all the bands (curated by the legendary Senders) that played there regularly.
We felt we had finally captured our sound, but the band was no more. JZ, Mark, and I had already been playing as The GasHounds, so our attention went there and a whole new batch of songs and recordings.
When JZ and I went through all our studio tapes from start to finish (1985-89), we revisited the thought we had long ago- can we capture our essential sound? We feel these recordings present the band as we always felt we should have been on record.
So, ladies and gentlemen, This Is The Alter Boys!
2) The Alter Boys are an American band including members of the bands Dog Fashion Disco, Mushroomhead, and Unified Culture, as well as MTV's Jackass. They play in various musical styles, and released their debut album in 2005. They are currently on Jason Popson's label "Fractured Transmitter" .
Vocals - Todd Smith, Jason Popson
Additional vocals - Craig Martini, Mike Martini, Ryan Dunn
Guitar - Todd Smith, Mike Martini
Bass - Craig Martini
Keyboards - Matt Rippetoe
Woodwind - Matt Rippetoe
Accordion - Mike Martini
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