Louis (guitar), CRegg (vocals, acoustic 12-string guitar), and I
all grew up together from early childhood. Louis and CRegg were
neighbors in the same condo complex and knew each other since they
were mere toddlers wearing diapers. I lived a mile away so it
wasn't until the beginning of elementary school that my path
crossed with theirs.
Looking back now, it seems fitting that
the first time I ever saw CRegg he was singing. A happy kid with
wild blonde hair and a big smile, he was in the schoolyard belting
out that song from THE WIZ, "C'mon and ease on down, ease on down
the road" over and over as he'd run toward the chainlink fence at
the edge of the playground and bounce into it.
I remember
seeing Louis around from time to time but my first encounter with
him wasn't until I was 11. He'd ripped a friend of mine off,
selling him a crappy BMX bike which he'd painted over and plastered
with Red Line stickers, trying to pass it off as the real thing.
Teased by all the kids, my friend quickly realized he'd been taken
so we set off on bikes to find this "Louie" character and get a
refund. We tracked him down at the local video arcade where he'd
already spent the kid's money. No refund was granted but Louis and
I wound up becoming great friends.
Louis, CRegg and I spent a
lot of time together over the years, having fun, hangin' out at
each other's houses, getting into trouble (I was usually the
instigator, "always scheming" as CRegg puts it), and finding
ourselves.
In 1990 CRegg was burning with a passionate idea and
told me that we had to form a band. "Scott, you've already been
playing bass, Lou's been playing guitar--he can play all kinds of
Slayer and Metallica stuff--and I can sing!" A mutual friend of
ours played drums and our first band was formed. We played parties
and had fun and all was going well until our drummer announced he
was quitting to join another band. We were hurt, but with 20/20
hindsight I now see that everything happens for a reason.
We
decided to form a new band and go in a new musical direction. We
met and jammed with a slew of drummers, mostly meat heads; usually
within the first 30 seconds we could tell it wasn't going to work.
Forming a strong band is much like dating: you search and search
until you find that perfect person for you, that soulmate who
understands you and who you understand; someone with whom you can
connect. When it is true, you know it.
Flashback: Michael
(drums) was born and reared in Los Angeles until his dad's job
transferred the family to Connecticut. He adjusted and life was
good until his dad's job relocated the family again, this time
uprooting Michael's ties and landing him at the beginning of his
10th grade year in a small country town, just a blip on the map
somewhere in Texas. "That's where my nightmare began," Michael puts
it. A small, fast-talking city kid, he stood out from the crowd,
never really fitting in, and became a self-professed "loner." It
was during that time that he spent countless hours locked away in
his room playing drums. He played in many bands and eventually his
drumming brought him back to L.A.
The music gods led him to us
as we found each other, of all places, in a "Drummer Wanted" ad
we'd placed in an L.A. paper. And in February of 1993 Boy Hits Car
was born.
We wrote songs and gigged locally. Los Angeles has
what we call the "pay-to-play" circuit where certain clubs will
sometimes charge bands up to a few hundred dollars to pre-sell
tickets to their own show which ensures them a slot on a good bill.
Since we always agreed bands shouldn't have to pay money to express
their art we opted not to take that route. Why do what is expected
of you? Why let the car hit you? We agreed to stand strong as the
boy and hit the car. Going it this way was sometimes tough. We
never did pay-to-play but with no fanbase we were given the worst
possible time slots, like 12:15am on a Tuesday or 7:30pm on a
Friday.
We got used to playing for next to no one and in turn,
we learned how to play for ourselves, to connect with each other,
to feed off each other's energy and give it our all; blood, sweat,
and tears (literally). We became stronger as a unit.
In March
of 1995 a booking agent got hold of our demo tape and sent us out
on a six-week tour. We'd hardly been out our front door and there
we were traveling across the country, just the four of us and all
our equipment in our brown van, "Scooby," living together, playing
our music and growing closer as band mates and as brothers. We were
still playing to next to no one but we were living our dream.
Once home, we wrote more songs, played more gigs, and recorded more
demo tapes. We did some more short tours over the country and in
1997 we got signed to a very independent record label. We recorded
our first album, "My Animal" (released in May 1998). We gave it all
we had but the label gave it no promotion and 2 weeks after its
limited release and low sales, they dropped us.
Feeling
discouraged and disheartened we pressed on and believed in the
music we were creating and in ourselves. We continued to do what we
had always done. We played more gigs with shoddy time slots and
little by little more people kept coming out to see us.
Toward
the end of 1999 we began garnering interest from various record
labels and in January 2000 we signed with our first choice, Wind-up
Records.
In February we picked up a handful of dates on the
SnoCore tour opening for System Of A Down, Incubus, and Mr. Bungle
and recently we opened for Papa Roach on a couple of dates, layin'
it down to some crazy crowds. After years of sweatin' it out to
small crowds these gigs were a step up to a new level for us as we
found ourselves playing to the largest audiences we'd ever been in
front of; sometimes as many as 3,000 people. It's amazing for us to
play in front of large audiences and to connect and to feel the
power and energy coming back to us. But whether we are playing in
front of 3,000 people or 3 people our motto is the same as it's
always been: "Play all-out from the heart or don't play at
all."
I know not where tomorrow will take us; all I know is
where we are today. And today I feel fortunate to be able to create
and play beautiful music with my three brothers. And in this moment
we are pouring everything we've got into this record to make it the
sickest, loveliest, ugliest, prettiest, most beautiful, melodic,
heartfelt album coming at ya straight from the depths of our
soul.
People always ask me, what does Boy Hits Car stand for?
My answer is simple: Boy Hits Car believes in living from the heart
and following your dream. It doesn't matter what your passion is or
what you do, it just matters that you do it with love.-- 14:18, 24
November 2005 (UTC)
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