The Start

Info Courtesy of Wiki with the permission of the Start.

In January 2003, AFI invited theSTART to open up for them. Jeff Jaeger left the band in February and they brought in Sarah Saturday to play bass. theSTART continued to jump on tours, including Vaux, The Used and Coheed and Cambria. In May, Sarah and Brian were fired from the band because of conflicts. Having had a tour with Alkaline Trio still planned in June, theSTART borrowed friends Todd O'Keefe and Justin Rocherolle from The Green And Yellow TV to fill in.

Erick Sanger met theSTART when his previous band, Kissing Chaos, had played a show with them in Texas. He told Aimee he loved theSTART and would like to be in the band if they ever needed him. Bringing along friend Billy Brimblecom, Jr. to play drums, the lineup was finalized in July 2003. That summer they opened tours for Ozma, Onelinedrawing, and Taproot.

Nitro Records had been watching theSTART since they played with AFI. theSTART were signed in October 2003 and the Death Via Satellite EP was re-released with new artwork. They then joined the first Girlz Garage tour along with Lennon Murphy, Brassy and Lillix.

theSTART began to record their second full-length album Initiation in February 2004. In March, they embarked on another UK tour, this time with The Offspring. They continued to tour with The Offspring for North America, opening beside The (International) Noise Conspiracy and Auf Der Maur. They embarked on a co-headlining tour with The AKAs throughout July.On August 24, Initiation was released on Nitro Records.

Unfortunately it seems with good must come bad, as drummer Billy Brimblecom, Jr. announced the same day that he would be leaving the band. TheSTART took a month off then resumed headlining tours with new drummer Frank Zummo. For a few shows, Adrian Young of No Doubt filled in for drums.

In February 2005, Goldfinger asked theSTART to be on their animal rights tour, as both bands have vegetarian and vegan members. In the next few months, theSTART had another co-headlining tour, this time with Showbread.

In July, they were very excited to begin a tour with Head Automatica but less than halfway through it, Daryl Palumbo (Head Automatica singer) got sick and was hopitalized. The rest of the tour was cancelled. So theSTART jumped on the Team Sleep tour for the rest of the month. Frank Zummo left the band to focus on his project Street Drum Corps and Ed Davis was brought in on drums.

In August, Garbage invited theSTART to be the only opener on their last North American tour. March of 2006 had theSTART joining The Birthday Massacre for a month long tour. They continued on touring until the summer when longtime bassist Erick Sanger was unexpectedly let go. Drummer Ed Davis also departed to join Juliette and the Licks.

They brought in friends Lance Webber (ex-The Art Of Safecracking) on bass and Colin Strahm (of The Johns) on drums. They resumed playing when they were invited to open for such bands as Rancid, The Living End, and Metal Skool later in the year. The band was once again without a label as they had parted ways with Nitro Records. Though on Halloween 2006, they announced their signing with Metropolis Records and began work on their new album.

Aimee and Jamie wrote and recorded the new songs entirely by themselves this time. The band began playing again in March, until Echo was asked by the Teddybears to do vocals on their tour in April, which included a stop at the Coachella festival. When she returned, they hit the road with Front Line Assembly. Drummer Frank Zummo had returned for a stint replacing Colin Strahm.

The new record Ciao, Baby was released on June 5th, 2007. They played the whole cd live at the record release show at Safari Sam's on June 14th. Singer/drummer Chelsea Davis of Digital Black joined the band on drums as they prepared to tour in support of the album.

In July of 2007, the band released on their Myspace page a cover of the song "Cities in Dust" by Siouxsie & the Banshees, one of the band's life-long musical inspirations. The song was intended to be featured in promotion on the third Resident Evil film.

Ciao, Baby track "Blood On My Hands" was released as a digital only single on October 16, 2007 and featured a remixed version of the song by Chris Vrenna of Nine Inch Nails. theSTART are spending the end of 2007 opening shows for She Wants Revenge. Ironically, founding drummer of theSTART and ex-Human Waste Project member, Scott Ellis, plays drums for She Wants Revenge, making it the first time the three founding members of theSTART have toured together since 2002.

Now after my long Wiki intro, I can give my opinion on this awesome band. Remember peeps, that I listen to all the tunes first and 90 percent of the time, I've been in contact with the artist and they've approved me putting their info on the site. All of them have been gracious enough to send me some mp3s of their wonderful creations. I was totally shocked and pleasantly surprised that the Start messaged me back. I couldn't believe it, you know how some bands are to hot that they don't feel a need to be on some little site like Crazy Indie Girl.

I first heard their music while watching the L Word season 5 episode 5 and I had to find out the goods on the music that was filling my ears. There are tons of fan websites and one in particular lists all the artists and track that are played on the show. There it was, " Ciao Baby" and " Surrender"! Please make sure you take time out to check out the links as well as listen to their album. It's so worth it! Also, make sure you check out my new radio station, UNUradio to hear all the tracks from the artists on my site.