Biography
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Years Active
1991 – 1996 (5 years)
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Founded In
Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States
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Members
- Joey Vindictive
- Johnny Personality
The Vindictives were a Chicago-based punk pop group formed in 1990, and were active through 1996. They are peers with Screeching Weasel, The Queers and other bands from the era, they are also heavily-influenced by the Ramones. Joey Vindictive's characteristic nasal melodies often told the story of alienation, psychosis, social-ills, and continually rejected rules of politeness. The lyrics are often intelligent outrages communicated through intentionally immature self defeating soliloquies.
They began their career in 1991, cutting their first two 7" records (released on their own VML Records) with the lineup of Joey Vindictive (vocals), Johnny Personality (bass), Ben Weasel (guitar), Dr. Bob (guitar), and Erik Elsewhere (drums). Elsewhere would be replaced by PJ Parti the following year and Billy Blastoff would replace Ben Weasel in 1993. The band would end up with 12 releases (mostly 7" EPs) until July of 1996, when Joey Vindictive revealed that his health issues would prevent the band from going on. Luckily for him, he overcame his ailments to re-form the band in 1998, cutting the "Hypno-Punko" album (their only full-length record of original tunes) and overseeing the re-release of a significant part of their catalog. Dr. Bob died in 2003 due to a heroin overdose. Their song "The Invisible Man" was featured in the Ubisoft game Watch Dogs, where it attracted attention to restart the band (now down to just Joey Vindictive and Johnny Personality) once more in 2013, releasing a new EP titled Mono-Flexi, and to remaster most of their previous songs as Songbooks coming in volumes starting from I to III.
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