My Name Is John

Infobox musical artist
Name = My Name is John


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Origin = Sydney, Australia,
Genre = Punk rock Alternative rock Grunge
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Years_active = 2001 - Present
Label = Johnny Records
Associated_acts = The Drugs Major Keg Town Hall Steps Ebolagoldfish Chris Duke and the Royals The New Justice Team Gone by Ten Speedball
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Current_members = Aaron "Az" Holesgrove Chris Reed Andrew "Peg" Duker
Past_members = Jet Frichot Tara Cliffe Tommy Ivanovsky Ryan Lambert Cameron Mackin Tim Walter Simon Crumblin Cheyne Reading

My Name Is John

My Name Is John are a 3 piece band from Sydney, Australia. My Name Is John consists of members Aaron "Az" Holesgrove (vocals/bass), Chris Reed (guitar/backing vocals) and Andrew "Peg" Duker (drums/ backing vocals). They incorporate a modern punk and ska influenced sound with outrageous and most commonly sexually charged lyrics which undertone the bands comedy approach. The band has released four CDs - "Pleased To Meat You" (April 2003), "Music To Make Love To, Vol 1" (April 2006), "Let The Games Begin!" (January 2007) a split LP with Sydney band Major Keg, and "Music To Make Love To, Vol 2" (September 2007). To date, the band has released four singles and produced two film clips. My Name Is John's music is said to be influenced by bands such as Green Day, MxPx, NOFX, Goldfinger, The Mad Caddies, Less Than Jake and Frenzal Rhomb.

Definition of Band Name

When describing their band name, My Name Is John acknowledges that it is not the easiest of explanations. Among other references, the name most prominently refers to singer/bassist Aaron Holesgrove's alternate name in a previous Sydney band called The Drugs [http://www.bombshellzine.com/hotseat/06080701.htm] , in which his character name was "John Citizen", a persona which represented the standard working class of Australia. Aaron wished to expand on this concept by creating a band of John Citizens, essentially identifying the group as a bunch of normal people who do not see themselves bigger than anyone else, who normal people as an audience could relate to as normal people. This is thought to be in spite of the abundance of talented artists who tend to flaunt themselves in a god like status within the media and on television - a personality trait that the band is well fond of mocking and attempting to humiliate other artists for.

The Early Beginnings/ Band Origins

The band in its various forms has long been the concept of singer/frontman Aaron Holesgrove. When Aaron first finished high school in 1998, he was keen to start a band and his first attempt in 1999 was called “Scared”, which after a few line up revisions featured Aaron on vocals and guitar, Aaron's university friend (and current The New Justice Team guitarist) Cameron Mackin on bass and Aaron's high school friend Megan Lasnick on drums. The band had no recordings and didn’t play any shows, disbanding after a brief period due to having a lack of interest in sustaining the project and Aaron's desire to play in other bands for a while before attempting to permanently construct his own band. It was during this period that Aaron wrote the songs "69er", "A Pretty Girl" and "The Moocow Song"," which where later used on the first MNIJ CD. During the final weeks of the band Aaron was introduced to Matt Downey, who had recently started a new band called The Drugs. During Aaron's time with the Drugs, they were Nominated for the Best Comedy Release at the 2001 ARIA Awards. [http://www.ariaawards.com.au/history-by-award.php?awardID=24] Aaron was invited to join the project in an assisting onstage role and decided to pursue that for the next year and a half. During this time Aaron was telling people that the next time he'd attempt his own musical project that it would instead be called My Name Is John, in reference to his character name in The Drugs which was "John Citizen".

My Name is John – 2001 to 2003

After The Drugs split up for the first time in mid 2001, Aaron was introduced to a guy named Jet Frichot through friends and it was in their first conversation that Jet strongly encouraged Aaron to start up his original band concept, offering to take part in the project as lead guitarist. The musical style of the band was to see a cross of styles spanning the punk rock, ska, alternative rock, pop rock and grunge styles.

After jamming for a while on acoustic guitars, Aaron (playing second guitar whilst taking lead vocals) and Jet recruited Tara Cliffe to play bass and Tommy Ivanovski to play drums. Tommy was quickly replaced on drums by Ryan Lambert. After only a few shows, Aaron suffered a hyperextension injury to the pinkie finger on his left hand, ending his stint as a guitarist, and recruited former band mate Cameron Mackin from Scared to replace him on guitar whilst he rehabilitated his finger injury and continued in the band to only sing. In this form, My Name Is John quickly exploded onto the Sydney local scene, playing around 35 shows between June 2002 and August 2003, highlighted by a headlining performance at The Roma Room at The Metro in Sydney in April 2003 and a performance at the Rock 4 Refugees Festival within the home of the Newtown Jets in November 2002 in front of over 1000 people.

My Name Is John endeavoured to record a demo CD and in September 2002 began work on an EP that was tentatively titled ""The Beginning Of The End". Their first attempt was scrapped and started again in a different studio after it was felt the original producer was taking too long to make the cd. The second attempt was recorded with Tim Walter at Release Studio (who has since engineered all of the band's CDs) between Dec 2002 and Jan 2003. After production of the CD had completed, Tara left the band in Jan 2003 to travel Europe, and the band chose not to replace her, instead having Aaron take over on bass after his finger injury had since healed. Just a few weeks before the release of the CD, the band decided to change the name of it to ""Pleased to Meat You" as the band felt the hidden sexual connotation within the name was so funny they couldn't resist using it as the title of a CD. Whilst in the mood for changing things, they also decided to change the name of the lead single from "69er" to "A Dinner For Two" for the CD, a change that was not made to the song overall.

After touring the CD throughout NSW, travelling as far as Newcastle, Wollongong and Canberra (ACT), it became evident that MNIJ's many encompassing styles was making it difficult for the band to establish an identity. Also, whilst Jet Frichot seemed happier playing the pop and rock genre music, Cameron Mackin and Ryan Lambert seemed happier playing the punk genre music. It was becoming obvious to the band that they would not be continuing with it in its current form and in August 2003 after a show supporting The Porkers at the Kelts Bar in Blaxland NSW, the band ended and Aaron returned his band idea back to the conceptual stage whilst pursuing business interests in the IT field.

My Name is John - 2003 to 2005

The current path of My Name Is John can be largely credited to producer Tim Walter, who got involved with Aaron's project in late 2003. With Aaron looking to create a fast, edgier style of band focused on punk music and having put his other writing styles behind him, Tim offered to help jam on guitar with Aaron and offered many free hours in the studio to help Aaron produce a decent demo of his music to use to recruit members of a new band with. Over the periods of late 2003 throughout 2004 Tim and Aaron even played a handful of live shows in Sydney infrequently, for the fun of it, using the band name My Name Is John during this time and having friend Simon Crumblin play drums for these couple of shows.

After Tim returned from a lengthy European holiday at the end of 2004, Aaron and Tim began the process of creating the new band and recruiting members. The first search was for a drummer which lead them to find Cheyne Reading in early 2005. The three rehearsed for a few months before Chris Reed was recruited as the new guitarist in mid 2005 as a replacement for Tim Walter. With the line-up settled, My Name Is John was reborn and quickly and eagerly hit the live scene in Sydney, again.

My Name is John - 2005 to 2006

Aaron's decision to reuse his last band name for his new band proved to be a success for the group as the familiarity of the name allowed the band to overcome the typical growing pains associated with establishing a band's name within the live scene and people took to the new and improved lineup and music quickly and positively, allowing the group to quickly gain respect from the venues in Sydney - an achievement that even shocked the band members themselves.

Reacting to the positive reviews of their first few months of shows, the band endeavoured on an ambitious project in late 2005 called "Music To Make Love To", which would involve the creation of a two part series of CDs with matching artwork and reflect the fast and funny personalities of the band. In January 2006 production began on "Vol 1" and the CD was launched at the Metro in April of 2006. On the night of the Vol 1 CD launch, Reed and Az approached their friends in Sydney band Major Keg about creating another project together as a split album that would see the bands collaborate together, an idea that Major Keg liked and agreed to. Reed and Az also became involved in an ultimately doomed project that was to feature four bands, all from different countries, on a four way split album named "“Play It By Beer”". The project was cancelled after the U.S. band contributing to the CD broke up.

After just one month had passed since the launch of the "Vol 1" CD, Cheyne Reading informed the band that he was leaving, citing the rapid rise in the band's activity and his intention to instead pursue playing in a band of a more hardcore style. Cheyne now travels the world regularly with his travel agent wife Danielle and hasn't caught on with another band since leaving MNIJ.

On the day of Reed's 20th birthday in May 2006, Peg Duker accepted the band's invitation to join as the new drummer, as his current band at the time Kernundrum were on the verge of splitting up and he was looking for a new band to drum in. Shortly after joining the band, Peg hit the studio with the band in July 2006 to record two new songs - "Why Must I Insist On Having Sex" which was to be used on the upcoming split album with Major Keg, and "Anarchy Anarchy" which was to be used on the upcoming "Vol 2 cd". The band worked on these two songs whilst waiting for the members of Major Keg to return from a lengthy overseas trip, so that they could begin work on their split album.

Once Major Keg had returned, the two bands organised a big show at the Cat n Fiddle Hotel in Balmain for 12th August 2006 in which the two bands would both record the live audio and have the show filmed. This show is largely credited as the show that introduced Major Keg to MNIJ's following and with fellow Sydney band Ebolagoldfish also being on that show it created the current close knit group of friends amongst bands that exists to this day.

In September 2006, the band endeavoured to achieve two further milestones - a film clip and an interstate tour. The clip created by the band was for the current single from the "Music To Make Love To Vol 1" CD titled ""What A Beautiful Day" and their first interstate trip saw the band travel to Melbourne and play a string of dates there. It was on this trip that MNIJ members Aaron Holesgrove and Chris Reed infamously lost the cymbals to Peg Duker's drum kit which has become the source of a lot of ribbing of his band mates on Peg's part and is still a subject that can produce a very animated discussion amongst the MNIJ band members.

In October 2006, My Name Is John returned to Tim Walter's studio again to record the drum tracks to both MNIJ's contribution to the newly titled split album with Major Keg – “"Let The Games Begin!"” - and the Vol 2 CD release due the next year. Throughout October and November, with Aaron Holesgrove in the producer's chair for the first time, My Name Is John and Major Keg finished production on the album in time for a summertime release.

In December 2006, My Name Is John and Major Keg hosted a Christmas show in which MNIJ used the brass section of the band Regicide within their own band which proved to be a great success. This show also featured the emergence of Peg's side project called Chris Duke and the Royals, in which Peg sings as lead vocalist.

Also in that same month, My Name Is John performed at the launch of the compilation album “"Live At The Cat, Vol 3"” at the Cat n Fiddle Hotel in Balmain on the 15th December, 2006. MNIJ had contributed a live recording to the compilation album with a live version of their single “"What A Beautiful Day"” which was recorded at the same show the band recorded to capture live recordings to contribute to their “"Let The Games Begin!"” split album with Major Keg.

Let the Games Begin & Music to Make Love To, Vol 2 - Jan 2007 to Current

January 2007 saw My Name Is John and Major Keg embark on their biggest ever tour to date for both bands - a one and a half week long trip that saw both bands visit a whole host of towns throughout Victoria and South Australia in addition to locations in ACT and New South Wales, with stops at Geelong, Melbourne, Adelaide, Elmore (for the 21st Australian Jamboree 2007 [http://www.getinthegame.com.au/] with a 3500 people in the crowd, up against Bjorn Again, who pulled only 2000 at their main stage show), Bendigo, Canberra and Newcastle. Two weeks later the CD was officially launched in Sydney at The Lansdowne Hotel on 27th January, 2007.

Tour Poster: [http://www.mynameisjohn.com/flyers/ltgb_tour_poster.jpg]

In February 2007 My Name Is John filmed a live show with a handful of their favourite Sydney and Canberra bands to be used on an as-yet unannounced DVD that will be released sometime in 2008.

February 2007 through to June 2007 also saw the band return to the studio to begin work on their fourth studio release - the long awaited "Music To Make Love To, Vol 2". The band have said that this is their most expensively produced CD to date and will demonstrate their elevated level of technical production.

In August 2007 MNIJ's launch weekend in support of their "Vol 2" release was unexpectedly cancelled just days before the shows were meant to happen after singer/bassist Aaron Holesgrove was hospitalised with a severe chest infection that lead to one of his lungs partially collapsing. Aaron later explained the situation to the fans via the band's MySpace blog (dated 16th August 2007). A new official launch date was confirmed for Friday September 21, 2007 at the Empire Hotel in Annandale, NSW, which was performed with Major Keg as a support and featured My Name Is John once again using a live brass section for a select few tracks. The band announced onstage that the show was being recorded live for a future project.

In addition to a forthcoming live DVD, MNIJ have commented recently that they will be releasing another short length CD which will be a digital only release given away for free over the internet. No release date has been announced.

Discography

Videography

References:

Bombshellzine.com - [http://www.bombshellzine.com/hotseat/06080701.htm http://www.bombshellzine.com/hotseat/06080701.htm] ARIA Awards - [http://www.ariaawards.com.au/history-by-award.php?awardID=24 http://www.ariaawards.com.au/history-by-award.php?awardID=24] 21st Australian Jamboree 2007: http://www.getinthegame.com.au Band's Sites: www.myspace.com/mnij, www.mynameisjohn.com