The Unband
| The Unband | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Newton, Massachusetts |
| Genres | Hard rock, punk rock, heavy metal |
| Website | theunband.com; myspace.com/theunband |
| Members | Eugene Ferrari, Matt Pierce, Michael Ruffino |
| Past members | Mink Rockmoore www.minkrockmoore.org |
The Unband is an American hard rock band composed of drummer Eugene Ferrari, lead singer and guitarist Matthew Pierce, and bass guitarist Michael Ruffino.
Pierce and Ruffino began playing together under various names in suburban Boston in late 1987, originally with drummer (and future ABC News correspondent) Dan Harris. Harris was replaced by Eugene Ferrari, previously Pierce's bandmate in a band called Afghanistan Spoon Festival. Mink Rockmoore joined The Unband in 1990 as its lead guitarist, but left a year later.
From suburban Boston the band relocated to Western Massachusetts, where Pierce and Ferrari attended the University of Massachusetts, and played around the Five College area. Rockmoore remained in Boston but continued to play with the band intermittently, though he does not appear on recordings after 1991. In 1993 the band recorded Chung Wayne Lo Mein, engineered and co-produced by Peter Keppler (Philip Glass, David Bowie) and released on Chunk Records in January 1994.
At Northampton’s Bay State Hotel in 1994, headlining the launch party for the Boston zine Mommy And I Are One, the Northampton Police shut down the show due to on-stage nudity The Unband were cited and received a court summons for "open and gross lewdness". The band was permanently banned from performing at the venue, though they continued to do so under different names.
After moving briefly to Los Angeles and New York City before returning to Massachusetts, in early 1998 the band signed with New York City-based Indie label Royalty Records (now defunct) and recorded tracks at Slaughterhouse Studios in Hadley, Massachusetts with Mark Alan Miller (Dinosaur Jr., Pernice Brothers) and Jon Marshall Smith (Joey Ramone, Murphy's Law), for an album to be called Retarder (after a type of sound baffling used in the studio). When the band delivered the album and its cover artwork several weeks later, Royalty refused to release the album with its band-designed cover art, and agreed to sell the master tapes back to the band. The band later signed to TVT Records and the album was remixed at Avatar Studios by Kevin Shirley (Iron Maiden, Rush), who also produced two additional tracks, "Too Much Is Never Enough" and "We Like To Drink And We Like To Play Rock And Roll". The band began touring in North America and Europe with bands including Motörhead, Nashville Pussy, The Headstones, The Black Halos, Chevelle, and California stoner rock band Fu Manchu, as well as with the heavy metal bands Dokken, Great White, Sebastian Bach, Dio, Anthrax, and Def Leppard.Retarder was released on TVT in 2000.
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