In this short interview segment, the speakers recount how the band’s origins were shaped by early DIY efforts and online networking. Speaker B explains that while attending college in Tampa, he formed a grunge‑rock group called Lives Page with a fraternity brother and friends. Using MySpace, they connected with musicians from Long Island, Massachusetts, Florida, and North Carolina, arranging a self‑booked tour that hit markets where their friends and family lived. They secured early gigs at venues such as the Crazy Donkey on Long Island and the Village Pub in Amityville, illustrating how personal networks and online platforms enabled the band to assemble members from multiple states and launch their first shows.
Great, here we go. All right, so that's cool. And then eventually, how did you end up meeting up with the rest of the guys? Now, you know, they were already a band for a year. How did that work out? How did you get there?
Man, MySpace is a hell of a place. Yeah, like, you know, listen, we've all kind of been DIY from the beginning of our careers, even still now, right? Even at this stage in our career, we are incredibly hands-on in what we do. And so I was in a band down in Tampa where I went to college and we booked our first, call it, you know, tour with a band I was in called Lives Page, which was like this grunge rock band with my fraternity brother and a couple of friends. And it led us to like play, I think we played like 9 shows going kind of the play was I was from Long Island, my guitarist was from Massachusetts, from Western Mass, and then our bass player was from Florida and, you know, one of the guys from North Carolina. Basically, we're like, oh, we'll just hit all of these markets where our friends and family could come see us and we'll put a tour around that. We booked a show at this place called the Crazy Donkey on Long Island, which was like—
I think it was the Village Pub or something. I'm sorry. Amityville.
It was VP South, which was like this hole-in-the-wall pub. Maybe it held, you know, I don't know, 200 people on a good day. And on MySpace, somehow I got connected to John and we were talking and I'm like, hey, we need a band, like, you know, do you want to play? You know, because we were trying to figure out how to pair bands, like, you know, to find support because we didn't know what the hell we were doing. I had no idea how to book a tour. Like, we got in a van we rented and just drove. And so these guys came down, they played the show with us.
