Biography
Inspired by the then-receding West Coast do-it-yourself movement, M.S. Reynolds & R. Yovino formed Wavering Saints in April of 1997. The Santa Rosa, California duo initially focused on low fidelity fuzz-pop and mildly obnoxious feedback experiments. Using a borrowed four-track recorder and a paint shed, Reynolds & Yovino fine-tuned their impulsive sound over the winter, self-releasing a series of short EPs dubbed onto cheap cassettes. The EPs, while spotty, were nonetheless well-received locally.
Despite an emerging reputation, Wavering Saints went on an extended hiatus in June 1998. Reynolds abruptly left Northern California for India, returning a year later to enroll in a Los Angeles law school. Meanwhile, Yovino relocated to the Bay Area to finish college.
Although the band never officially broke-up, Wavering Saints did not reemerge for about four years. In 2002, Reynolds & Yovino revived the Wavering Saints moniker to record a song Reynolds had written specifically to give his fiancé as a surprise wedding present. Yovino invited guitarist E.E.N.J. and multi-instrumentalist Mark Aver to the sessions. The ad hoc recordings went so well that Reynolds & Yovino decided Wavering Saints should be kept going as an active, indefinite project. E.E.N.J. & Aver signed on as permanent members.
Geography posed a challenge to the new quartet, as band members were scattered throughout the continental United States. Undaunted, Wavering Saints collaborated remotely over the next year-and-a-half, sending cassette tapes back-and-forth through the mail. A mutual friend played one of the unfinished tapes for Cotton Sweeney, the President of Stockton, California’s Central District Records. Sweeney signed the band shortly thereafter and, in September 2004, Central District Records released the Strike Date EP. The four song collection was made available exclusively on 12” vinyl.
At the urging of Sweeney, Reynolds & Yovino put together a live version of Wavering Saints to play a one-off show in support of the Strike Date EP. Trumpet player D. Fichera and drummer Bradley Smith were recruited to be part of the live act. The show went well and the crowd was receptive to the band’s new, more structured material. Sweeney liked the direction the band was taking and requested the sextet record an additional EP. The band agreed and Wavering Saints released the Collusion EP in December 2005.
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