pop punk

Lagwagon is a punk band based in the small town of Goleta, California. Forming in 1990, they have released seven albums, all through San Francisco label Fat Wreck Chords. Although they are mostly a melodic hardcore punk band with a lot of metal influences in the soloing department and also in the riffing department especially in their vastly popular first 3 albums, key band members such as Derrick Plourde's and Shawn Dewey's departure and their poppier songs ending up on several cheap compilations put out by Fat Wreck Chords and very popular video game they ended up widely viewed as catalysts for the pop-punk / skate-punk movement of the 1990's, opening the door for some of the subgenre's more mainstream bands.

The most recent members of Lagwagon include Vocalist Joey Cape, guitarists Chris Flippin and Chris Rest, bassist Joe Raposo, and drummer Dave Raun.

Vocalist Joey Cape also plays guitar in punk rock cover band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and sang in the recently disbanded experimental punk band Bad Astronaut. Recently, he started a new project called Afterburner, which was expected to be similar to Bad Astronaut but has already been disbanded and the Afterburner myspace page (with four tracks) has been deleted. Joey has since started an alt-pop-punk project with other SB rockers named The Playing Favorites.

After 9 years and 5 records, the band remained silent in 1999-2000. They reunited in 2002 and released a comeback album titled Blaze in the following year. Despite the brief hiatus, the group has never broken up. In 2004, Joey released a split acoustic album with No Use For A Name frontman Tony Sly, which features acoustic versions of songs by both bands. Lagwagon's latest album, entitled Resolve, was released in October 2005 and is a tribute to the life of longtime friend Derrick Plourde (original drummer for Lagwagon and Bad Astronaut), who commited suicide on March 30, 2005.

Their most recent studio recording is a return to form with a short EP entitled I Think My Older Brother Used to Listen to Lagwagon that was released in August 2008.

In late 2011/early 2012 LagWagon released a box set entitled "Putting Music In Its Place" featuring the first 5 records, each with extra tracks, various versions and extra material.

The band has also, as of very recently, gotten back together with original guitarist and bassist for a 2012 tour to back up the release of their aforementioned box set. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

Mayday Parade was born in 2005 when two popular Tallahassee bands, Kid Named Chicago and Defining Moment, decided to merge and form one group. Both bands had been friends for a long time but they each seemed to have different kind of holdups. They pooled their resources, booted out the undedicated members and decided to take the good from each band and move forward. Armed with a dynamic lead singer Derek Sanders of Defining Moment, Mayday Parade explodes with energy and personality. Fans of both bands came together in support of the Parade and it wasn't long until thousands of other new fans got into the action. Mayday Parade knew they'd have to start at the grassroots level and began to work themselves to the top. Through their catchy tunes and fun attitude, they have hooked fans at their shows and online with an interactive MySpace selling 10,000 EPs without label support.

With the work hard, play hard, do whatever it takes to spread your music philosophy that most young bands need to have these days, the band took to the road and started winning over kids not just in Florida, but across the country. Mayday Parade was consistently in the top 30 unsigned artists on MySpace. They've consolidated over 50,000 friends and growing and have totaled over 2.4 Million plays. With labels hot on their tail, Mayday Parade decided that Fearless Records was the one for them and signed at the end of the summer 2006.

They then released their first professional record, A Lesson In Romantics, in 2007. Shortly after, one of the lead singers/vocalist Jason Lancaster ( lead guitarist/vocalist of Kid Named Chicago) left the band over a songwriting dispute. He then started his own band, Go Radio. There are no hard feelings between the two bands, although Lancaster later commented, "I wish it could have gone down differently."

In 2009, the band released their second album and first without Lancaster, Anywhere But Here.

Mayday Parade's live show also conveys their personality by assuring that they are intensely full of life. The band knows how to put on an engaging show with five energetic members. There's no escaping the energy that Mayday Parade brings. They're all over the stage, making sure the audience goes home happy and wanting more. They love to get the crowd engaged!

In 2011, the band released their third, self titled album. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.