The Lawrence Arms

The Lawrence Arms
Left to right: McCaughan, Kelly, and Hennessy in 2005
Background information
Origin	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genres	Punk rock
Years active	1999–present
Labels	Asian Man, Fat Wreck Chords, Epitaph Records
Associated acts	Slapstick, The Broadways, Baxter, The Falcon, Sundowner, Smoking Popes, Colossal, Tricky Dick, Brendan Kelly & The Wandering Birds, Noise By Numbers, Treasure Fleet
Website	myspace.com/thelawrencearms
Members	Neil Hennessy Brendan Kelly Chris McCaughan

The Lawrence Arms are an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. They have released six full-length albums and toured extensively.

Prior to forming the Lawrence Arms, the three band members were active in other Chicago-area bands. Brendan Kelly had played in the ska punk band Slapstick. Chris McCaughan had played in Tricky Dick before joining Kelly in The Broadways. McCaughan and Kelly also shared an apartment together on Chicago's north side. Neil Hennessy, meanwhile, had played in a band called Baxter. Both Slapstick and The Broadways released albums on Asian Man Records, a small record label based in Monte Sereno, California that would later release albums by The Lawrence Arms.

The three musicians came together to form the Lawrence Arms in 1999, taking their name from the apartment complex in which Kelly and McCaughan had lived before being evicted in the middle of the night. Although punk rock bands in their infancy generally start out by releasing EPs and 7" vinyl singles, the band members used their existing relationship with Asian Man Records to immediately begin recording a full-length album, A Guided Tour of Chicago, which was released later that year. A second album, Ghost Stories, followed in 2000. Both albums focused heavily on the members' own stories of growing up and living in Chicago.

The band's next two releases were split EPs with other bands. The first, a split with Shady View Terrace, was released in 2000 and was their first release to be recorded by Matt Allison, who would continue to record and produce all of their subsequent releases. A second EP, Present Day Memories, was released in 2001 and was a split with The Chinkees.