The band started in 1995 with bassist Jim Norton and guitarist Corey Lord doing old metallica covers and trying to write metal songs of their own. They acquired drummer Dave Maynard and in 1996, another guitarist, Matt McMillan. Eventually, Corey could no longer committ enough of his time to the band and subsequently quit. Jonathan Horn took his place in late 1996 and in early 1997, John Sheridan joined as the lead singer. By the end of the summer of 1997, the band dropped Matt because he would rather play Purple Haze than tune. In the late spring of 1998, John was replaced as singer by guitar player/singer, Kevin Mikles. The band lasted with Kevin, Jim, Jonathan, and Dave until the end of summer in 1999 when Dave went to the Army. Nate Bell replaced Dave and stayed with the band for our first year of college and then moved to California in the summer of 2000. Our third and most recent drummer, Evan Phelps, also went to Saline High School and plans on staying with the band for a while....hopefully.
The band has had quite a handful of names that accurately depict the changes in style and how cool Jim got.
They are as follows in chronological order:
Abscess
Legion
Our Naked Relatives
Ubu
Liar
Big Boy Bites Back
Voodoo Pork
The Social Retards
THE BIO:
You learn a lot of things in high school. You learn who to hate, who to like, what not to do in public, and how to masturbate. Some people pick up pigskins and sweat all over themselves. Others join a band, and still don’t get laid. We were the latter of the two.
Basically, we’re four guys from the village of Saline looking to have some fun and make it possible for us to quit our retarded part-time jobs …nothing more. We don’t care if we get to sit next to Carson Daily or shake hands with pop icons, because that’s not what we care about. The greatest honor we could receive would be a power lunch with David Yow, or a Foosballs tournament with the members of The Get Up Kids or Sunny Day Real Estate. We’re not posers or hypocrites, and we won’t argue about how much we should get out of the door charge, because we’re used to playing for free anyway. Our sound is an indie rock concoction, made up of two parts emo, one part garage, one part metal, and one part funk. We have a singer/guitarist who grew up with the Dead Kennedys, Mudhoney and the Treepeople. Our lead guitarist transformed from a Smashing Pumpkins, Veruca Salt kid, into a Drop kick Murphys and Lag Wagon connoisseur. Our bassist was raised on classical music and metal, and has some kind of guitar envy complex. And of course the drummer, who enjoys everything from The Foo Fighters to Incubus. Honestly, I don’t understand how we can come from all of that and still write like we do. Whenever we play a show we are the different band …whether good or bad, it’s hard to tell if we are ripping off anyone else’s sound. We’ve played mostly in the Ann Arbor, Detroit area, at places like The Blind Pig, Ypsilanti’s own Mugs Hideout, the now defunct Io’s, The Wired Frog, The I-Rock, Harpo's, and Harvey’s on the Mall, located in Kalamazoo. We are working on getting into the Chicago scene, and maybe we will have some shows set up there by this fall. We aren’t asking for a hand out or anything like that, but just the opportunity to have some one listen to us and give us an idea of where we need to go. If you choose to help us down that road, we thank you for the opportunity.
Sincerely,
The Social Retards
Kevin Mikles Evan Phelps Jim Norton Jon Horn
