Godsmack

Godsmack is an American heavy metal band from Lawrence, Massachusetts, formed in 1995. The band is composed of founder, frontman and songwriter Sully Erna, guitarist Tony Rombola, bassist Robbie Merrill, and drummer Shannon Larkin. Since its formation, Godsmack has released five studio albums, one EP, four DVDs, and one greatest hits collection.

The band has had three consecutive number one albums (Faceless, IV, and The Oracle) on the Billboard 200. The band also has parked a ratified 19 top ten rock radio hits, including 15 songs in the Top Five, a record amount of top ten singles by a rock artist.[1]

Since its inception, Godsmack has toured on Ozzfest on more than one occasion, and has toured with many other large tours and festivals, including supporting its albums with its own arena tours. Godsmack have sold over 17 million records in just over a decade, yet despite the decline of album sales in recent years, they have proven to be one of the highest-grossing artists in the United States.
In February 1995, Sully Erna decided to start a new band as the lead singer after playing the drums for more than 23 years, including more than two years in the now-defunct band Strip Mind.[3] His new band, The Scam, formed with Erna on vocals, Robbie Merrill on bass, local guitarist and friend Lee Richards on guitar, and Tommy Stewart on drums. The Scam quickly changed its name to Godsmack, after recording one demo.[4] The newly formed band started playing small bars in their hometown of Boston, Mass. Locally popular songs such as "Keep Away" and "Whatever" soon brought them to the top of the hit charts in the Boston/New England area.[3]

The band's name, according to Merrill in the Smack This! DVD, was taken from the Alice in Chains' song "God Smack". However, Erna stated in a 1999 interview, "I was making fun of somebody who had a cold sore on his lip and the next day I had one myself and somebody said, It looks like God just smacked you in the face for making fun. The name stuck and they went by Godsmack from then on. We were aware of the Alice in Chains song but didn't really think much about it. It's a cool song and the name had meaning for us."[5]

In 1996, Tony Rombola and Joe D'Arco joined Godsmack as the guitarist and drummer, after Richards had left upon learning he had a six-year-old child and Stewart had left due to personal differences.[6] In the same year, the band entered the studio for the first time, recording its first CD titled All Wound Up. The CD was recorded in just three days for $2,600.[3]

For the next two years, the band played throughout the Boston area. Eventually Godsmack's CD landed in the hands of Rocko, the night-time DJ for Boston radio station WAAF (FM). The radio station put "Keep Away" into heavy rotation and the song rose to the number one spot at the station very quickly.[3] Newbury Comics, a New England record store chain, agreed to sell the CD on consignment. Shortly after the success of "Keep Away", Godsmack went back into the studio and recorded a single titled "Whatever", which became the new local favorite on WAAF (FM).[3]

In an interview Sully Erna stated, "We had been selling maybe 50 copies a month at the time WAAF picked up the album. All of a sudden we started moving over a thousand records a week. It was insane. Even crazier, I was doing all this from my bedroom. After years of grinding away, things finally started taking off".

Members

Sully Erna
Tony Rombola
Robbie Merrill
Shannon Larkin
 
Past members

Tommy Stewart
Lee Richards
Joe D'Arco

The Click Five

The Click Five (often abbreviated as TC5)[1] is an American power pop band from Boston, Massachusetts. The original members, most of them students at Berklee College of Music, started on January 1, 2003 and played in various local venues.[2] They then quickly got the attention of talent scout Wayne Sharp (who had worked with the power pop group 'Candy'). The Click Five made their first recording, a two-song demo session, in early 2004 after successful local touring. They released their debut album Greetings from Imrie House in 2005. After vocalist Eric Dill left the group and was replaced by Kyle Patrick who debuted on their second album Modern Minds and Pastimes in 2007.[3] Their third album, TCV, was released in Asia in 2010 and will be released in the rest of the world in early 2011.

The band were initially known for their infectious power pop songs and for their Mod-based public image,[3] involving sharp-looking suits and ties coupled with moptop haircuts, which is deliberately reminiscent of The Beatles.[4] They prefer to classify their music as 'new school power pop'.[5] However, they have also been classified as 'pop punk' and 'teen pop'.[6][7] They achieved massive commercial success with their first album in the US and their second release met with extreme popularity in Asian countries such as Cambodia and the Philippines.[8] In total, the band has sold two million albums worldwide and have created eight number one singles in seven different nations.[9] The band starred in the 2007 movie, Taking Five with Alona Tal & Daniella Monet and Christy Romano.Ben Romans studied songwriting, Ethan Mentzer studied production and engineering, and Joey Zehr double majored in production/engineering and business at the Berklee College of Music. Roommates and close-friends Mentzer and Zehr moved to a place on Imrie Road in the neighborhood of Allston when they were both sophomores. Calling their place "Imrie House", they met with Romans and Joe Guese (whom Zehr once described as a "professional dropout") and formed a kind of pseudo-fraternity. The four played in various local bands, none of which had any success.[2] However, they drew the attention of Wayne Sharp, a musical talent agent who had mostly worked in jazz although he had also worked with the mid-1980s power pop group Candy.[3]

Romans went to work for a record company in Nashville. Jeff Dorenfeld, former manager of the band Boston, saw Guese and Mentzer performing in May 2003 and referred them to Sharp. Sharp liked their playing, but he had a low regard for their songs and their appearance. The first words Sharp ever said to them was "This isn't going to work unless you listen to me".[5]

The four soon took in Eric Dill, a high-school friend of Zehr from when they both lived in Indianapolis. Zehr has said that they began playing seriously because "[w]hen we started the band our senior year, it was basically our last-ditch effort, because we all knew we were about to be done with school and have to enter the real world".[2] They were all in their very early-20s.[10] According to Zehr, the group would play several shows a week that were booked under different band names to get around local clubs' rules preventing artists from playing that close to each other.[2] Their playing then got the attention of Mike Denneen, Boston-based producer of Fountains of Wayne, who agreed to help them produce a 2-song demo record. Denneen also introduced them to Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley, who was strongly supportive.[10]

The Click Five made their demos at Imrie House itself,[2] finishing in March 2004. Denneen believed that the group "sucked live" and pushed them to rehearse further.[5] The program director at Kiss 108, the big Boston Top 40 station, liked it enough to book the group for the station’s 'Concert on the Charles' in mid-2004.[2] The released their first EP, 'Angel to You (Devil to Me)', around this time.[3] Principal songwriter Ben Romans collaborated with Paul Stanley in creating the song,[10] and guitarist Elliot Easton, best known for his work in The Cars, played in it.[11]

The group hired a lawyer and shopped around some of the major labels. A college scout from Epic Records who witnessed one of their shows convinced Epic to fly the group to Los Angeles to play.[2] Lava Records, which was later folded into Atlantic Records, ended up signing the band in late-2004.[10] They started with the label a mere month after their EP. According to The Boston Globe, "Click Five was launched into the pop-music stratosphere with the full force of the industry's muscle behind it."[6] The band opened for Ashlee Simpson for the first time, a position that cost the label $25,000 and that one of their officials later called "the best money we've spent".[5]

The group ended up selling about 10,000 copies of the EP.[7] They then released 'Just the Girl', written by label-mate Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, to build up support for their debut album. They also toured extensively with Ashlee Simpson.[10] They released their debut, Greetings From Imrie House, on August 8, 2005, which they named after the building where they had started. It featured another song by Schlesinger titled "I'll Take My Chances", in which Elliot Easton also played.


 Members
 
Kyle Patrick
Joe Guese
Ethan Mentzer
Ben Romans
Joey Zehr

Past members
 
Eric Dill

Three Days Grace

Three Days Grace is a Canadian rock band, formed in Norwood, Ontario, Canada in 1992, originally under the name Groundswell. After a breakup in late 1997, the band regrouped in the same year under its current name and with a line-up consisting of guitarist and lead vocalist Adam Gontier, drummer and backing vocalist Neil Sanderson, and bassist Brad Walst. In 2003, Barry Stock was recruited as the band's lead guitarist. The band is based in Toronto.

After signing to Jive Records, Three Days Grace has released three studio albums: Three Days Grace in 2003, One-X in 2006, and Life Starts Now in 2009. The albums have been certified platinum, double platinum, and gold, respectively, in the United States.Three Days Grace, which was originally called Groundswell, was a post-grunge band that formed in 1992 in Norwood, Ontario. They released one full-length album called Wave of Popular Feeling. At that time, the line-up consisted of vocalist Adam Gontier, drummer Neil Sanderson, bassist Brad Walst, lead guitarist Phil Crowe, and secondary guitarist Joe Grant. Most of the members were attending high school when the band initially formed.[1][2]

By the fall of 1995, Phil Crowe and Joe Grant had left Groundswell. That same year, Gontier, Sanderson, and Walst regrouped and changed the band name to "Three Days Grace". According to Gontier, the name stands for a sense of urgency with the question being: if you had three days to change something in your life could you do it?[3] Once in Toronto, the band became acquainted with local producer Gavin Brown. The band gave him several years of material that they had created since forming, and he "picked out what he called 'the golden nuggets', according to Gontier.[4] Brown and the band polished the songs into a demo album which they gave to EMI Music Publishing Canada. The record label wanted to hear more material, and with Brown producing, the band created the song, "I Hate Everything About You", which attracted the interest of several record labels.[4] The band was soon signed to Jive Records after being sought out by the company's president.

 Band members
Current members

    * Adam Gontier – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1997–present)
    * Neil Sanderson – drums, percussion, piano, backing vocals (1997–present)
    * Brad Walst – bass guitar, backing vocals (1997–present)
    * Barry Stock – lead guitar (2003–present)