KILGORE

The Kilgore story begins at Catholic High School.... We all went to La Salle Academy in Providence, RI. We had a music program there that was a kind of concert band. There were three bands; an advanced, an intermediate and a beginner band.

We would practice a few days a week after school and then once a semester we would have an after school concert. These concerts were always well attended, we got some experience playing in front of an audience and we always had a lot of fun.

I was playing drums in the advanced band with Mike Pelletier on Guitar and Jason "Smitty" Smith on bass. Brian McKenzie, guitar and Bill Southerland, drums were playing in the intermediate band. Brian had been writing some original songs and was looking to put together a metal band. I believe he said he wanted it to be Metallica meets Faith No More. Before I got a chance to make my pitch, he told me that he asked Bill to play drums. Inside, I was like "What the hell?!?" But I knew even then that Bill would be a far better metal drummer than I would have. So Brian asked if I knew any singers.... I said yeah, me.

It was a total bluff. I had never sang for a band before. At best, I sang along to Bad Brains, Black Flag and The Misfits in the car at full volume. But that's about it. I just had 100% confidence that I could do it. Our first rehearsal, we had two songs complete and the whole sounded really damn good.

We played a few concerts at La Salle, a few backyard BBQ's, and when Bill, Smitty, Mike and I graduated in 1991... It was pretty much all over. Once Brian graduated in 1992, he had some new songs and call us up to play again. Mike had started at Berklee College of Music, so we asked fellow La Salle Alumni, Eric Linsao to join us. We practiced, wrote new songs and kept working till it was tight. We decided to call the band Smudge as a blend of our unique styles and personalities.

We had done some 4-track recordings during practice and shared them with family and friends. Our confidence grew... We booked a DIY show at a local FOP Hall and invited all our friends. It felt like something was happening. We decided we needed some pro recordings to book shows at clubs .

We arrived at Danger Multi Track Studios in Providence, RI at 10am on August 8th 1993. We were hanging out, smoking butts and getting to know our producer, Joe Moody. He asked how many songs we planned to record and we told him ten. He quickly said; "Oh shit! We better get moving!" We proceeded to track all ten songs, overdub guitar solos and vocals.... And mix the whole thing in 12 hours. Bless Joe, for knowing his room, his equipment and how to get a great sound out of a young band. It was easy, it was fun and we were thrilled with the results.