History

"The History of Romeo's Dead thus far"
By Zane Smith

December 1996.
Aaron and I have been out of music for 2 years after the break
up of our last band The Vex. Bored out of our minds we
collectively decide to form another band to give this fucked up
business called rock-n-roll another try. After placing and ad in
BAM magazine looking for a bassist and drummer into The
Clash, Lords of the New Church, Ramones, Hanoi Rocks,
etc...We receive calls from the usual dumb Asses into Rush and
Joe Satriani who say "I’m not into that stuff but I can play it". "I’m
40 and have a mullet"!!!. You know those kinds of guys. They
hang out at Guitar shops all day playing Yngwie Malmsteen riffs.
BORING LOSERS!!!..Aaron and I end the year with no
prospects.

1997.
Undaunted we continue to run our ad. Then in March or April I
cant remember exactly when. We get a call from Mr. Jayson
James. He is full of attitude and swagger and definitely had the
qualities we were looking for. We talk about bands that we like
and he’s into all of them plus he was willing to drive down from his
home up in Sonoma County to the city for practice 3 times a
week. We meet for the first time and take him out to see the
Groovie Ghoulies at the Kilowatt club in S.F. We all get
smashed out of our minds and have a great time. He’s the
guy!!!!. We still need a drummer. Jayson asks Forry (they have
played in several bands together in the past. Shotgun Wedding,
The Mess etc..) if he wants to join but he’s  in another band called
Plastic at the time and passes on our sorry asses. Jay recruits a
guy named Rob (cant remember his last name) to come and play
with us. He is a big body builder rocker guy. Nice guy but we all
know that he is not going to be the permanent guy. He’s a straight
metal dude (the bad type of metal!!) with no punk rock in him so
we butt heads all the time because of his "Modern Drummer
Magazine type bullshit". Wearing special drummer shoes, putting
up posters in our practice space of boring jazz drummers and
basically looking like a jock. The only benefit of Rob’s time in the
band was his stripper girlfriend would come to practice, get
drunk and start flashing her tits to us all. After a couple of
months and 2 lame ass shows. Jay and Rob are pretty much
not speaking to one another. Rob has to go!!!. We let Rob go
and the search is on for another drummer. Forry is the guy we
want but he’s still in Plastic. We make a plan to get him in the
band. We book some studio time to record a demo and ask
Forry if he would a least come and play on it to help us out.
Being the super great guy he is he agrees to practice with us a
couple times an do the demo. We all get along great. His playing
is exactly what we are looking for and he just basically kicks
ass!!!...We do the "A Beautiful Mess" demo and start to shop it
around to get some shows and interest. We convince Forry to
do a photo shoot with us (we have to look like a whole band we
tell him). He agrees!!
We decide to book a show. He agrees to do that also!!!. After
about a month of this he is spending more time with us than with
Plastic. He finally succumbs to us bugging him about being in the
band and quits Plastic!!. Romeo's Dead is finally a "real"
band!!!!...THE STORY BEHIND THE NAME ROMEO'S
DEAD. People have asked us how we got our name. It's a
simple story. We were all at Tommy's Joint restaurant in S.F.
drinking beers (this is during the short time Rob was in the band)
and throwing around names. Detention Kids, BrainBox and a
bunch of other really stupid names are being discussed. Jay
chimes in and says how bout' Romeo's Dead. We love it!!. He
says he was in a fight with his girlfriend at the time and she is all
pissed cause he isn't being Mr. Romantic and shit. He says fuck
that Romeo's Dead baby!!. It will come as no surprise they are
no longer together!!!...We narrow it down to like 3 final names.
We can’t decide so we ask our waitress which name she thinks is
the coolest. She says Romeo's Dead is a great rock-n-roll
name. We all agree and Romeo's Dead is born!!...That's it, a
Tommy's Joint waitress named us...How cool is that!!. ha, ha,
ha..

Forry is firmly in the band and we start to book shows. The
Cocodrie, Lindees, Zeitgeist, The Boomerang Club. We play
every dive bar in the Bay Area and start to build a local
following.

1998:
We start the year on a positive note. We finally get a show at
Stinkys Peepshow at the Covered Wagon Saloon. For those not
familiar with Stinkys. It is the premiere rock club in S.F.. We
were regular patrons and begged the promoter for months to
give us a show. Audra Morse the promoter finally relents and
gives us an opening slot.  I think she just wanted us to stop
calling her. We know we have to kick ass at this show because
this is where all the movers and shakers in the local rock scene
hangs out. Everybody who is anybody goes to Stinkys to check
out the coolest in local and touring underground bands. Plus it
was and still is where all the hot punkettes go. Everyone goes
there. Show day arrives and we kick some major ass!!!. We
blow away the headline act (some LA trash band) Audra is
pleased and we start to build a buzz. We start to get some press
in the local rags and things are looking pretty...
During this time the "Beautiful Mess" demo is circulating and
getting favorable reviews from punk/glam zines. We need to get
a new record out so we hit the studio to record a single. We go
into Davy Vains (remember Vain?...Beat the Bullet!!) studio in
San Rafael and lay down "So Far" and "Four",  Songs that are
still a couple of our best. We self-release (we are kicking ass,
packing shows but record labels still wont touch us) the 7' inch
single on our own "Independent Showgirl" label. The record
release show is packed and we sell a bunch of records. The
record gets lots of favorable press in zines around the world and
we start to get letters and make contacts all over the place. We
start to do little tours and build a bigger following. San Diego
becomes like a second home to us (and my current home). For
some reason LA has never been good to Romeo's Dead. Fuck
em' we say!!!...We release another single "Off the World" and
"Nothings Gonna Kill Ya" on Pelado Records (a very cool O.C.
label) and it does well, getting tons of favorable press around the
globe. We start to work on our full-length album "Its all Your
Fault" back at Davy Vains place. The summer of 98' is
probably the best time we ever had as a band. Recording the
album was so much fun. We spent our days laying down tracks
and our nights partying with the punkettes at the CW Saloon.
Davy was a great producer to work with, getting cool trashy
tones and entertaining us with stories from back in the Vain days
and his time playing with Steven Adler from Gun's-n-Rose's
short lived band Roadcrew. Funny shit, have him tell ya about it
sometime. We end the year on a high note. The album finished
and us ready to go to the next level. (Who knew what was to
come!!)

1999:
 We start the year fully convinced that this is going to be the year
that we break through. The album is done and we decide to put
it out on Independent Showgirl but distribute it through Pelado
records. Again the record release show is a huge success,
packed to the brim with Romeo's Dead fans. Glam/punk is
getting a cool underground buzz so lots of folks jump on the
bandwagon. Only us and a handful of others in town are doing
this kind punk-n-roll. But there seems to be a bigger audience
now as opposed to the year before. We release "Its all Your
Fault" and it gets nothing but glowing reviews in zines all over the
planet. We start to get interviews in tons of e-zines and print
magazines from San Francisco to Sweden. After the album
comes out we do some more little tours and things are looking
grand!!

Here is where we make our first mistake. We sign with AKA
Management out of New York. This guy supposedly is going to
make us huge. He manages a handful of other acts. Actress
Crystal Bernard, Wild Orchid and previously managed Anthrax
(a fact we still cant confirm). He promises us the world. Says we
will be in Europe by the fall pulling down 5 times the money we
get here in the states. (We were getting much more hype in
Europe as opposed to the states).  He says that he has Warner
Bro's interested and he wants to us to make a video and all this
kind of bullshit. Us being the dumb Asses, we believe all this
crap and put everything in his hands as opposed to doing it
ourselves (which has worked beautifully up till this point). We go
on tour and he says he has set up interviews along the way and
will be in LA to meet us. Well as if you couldn't guess. None of
the interviews or press came through. He didn't show up in LA
and we couldn't get a hold of him the entire time on that tour. I
wont waste your time going through all the details of the bullshit
this guy put us through but we wasted the first 7 months of 1999
waiting for this fucker to come through. We fired his ass late that
summer.

After that the band was feeling pretty low. The album was
getting great reviews and we had lots of hype but it wasn't
exactly flying off the shelves. To this day we still haven't
recouped the costs for that record. On tour we couldn't get
enough all-age shows to sell merchandise. (People over 21 don't
buy merch). But we were playing almost exclusively 21+ shows.
The few all-age gigs were the best. Tons of kids rocking out and
buying t-shirts asking for autographs, all the cool shit that comes
with being in a band. We started year on a high but by August
we were burnt out. The AKA Management debacle took its toll
on us mentally. Then a glimmer of hope came!!

That fall local Mans Ruin Records signed a cool deal with
Artemis Records (Danny Goldberg's new venture) Danny used
to be the president of Mercury Records. So Artemis had the big
guns to break a band past just the underground. Mans Ruin
offered us a 1 album deal that would be distributed through and
promoted by Artemis Records. That means you could find a
Romeo's Dead record in the all the big record stores across the
world. Before, to find our records you had to go to indie shops
specializing in punk or order it on-line even then it was tough to
find our stuff. Plus Artemis had the money to really promote the
record. Well we were all rejuvenated and ready to kick some
big time rock-n-roll ass. Then things started to not look so good.
Mans Ruin keep pushing back when they would be able to do
our album. (It was originally slated to come out the summer of
2000). Well fall came and then winter and we still haven't got
the green light to start our new album. The label keep pushing us
back saying that the label is going through some changes and
when things settle down they will be able to get us in the studio. 
We came into December of 99' still not knowing when or if
Mans Ruin was ever going to come through. We ended the year
with one last show (My birthday show) It was great. Us, Wayne
Kramer (ex MC5, very cool) and LA's Street Walkin Cheetahs
it was good way to end the year with a bang. Little did I know
that darker days were ahead.

2000

We start the year with a BIG set back. Forrest our drummer
and great friend announces he is leaving the band. I wont go into
the reasons behind his departure. There were numerous causes
for him wanting to leave. We are devastated after his
announcement!!. Over the next few weeks we cancel all our
upcoming shows (hence pissing off several promoters) and try to
re-group and make a plan. It was especially devastating because
the band has been so close as friends as well as bandmates. It
was beyond our comprehension playing with another drummer.
But we weren't ready to let Romeo die just yet (besides, we had
record deal. We thought!!) We try to think of drummers over
the next few weeks. We talk to a few  and finally our good
friend Greg McEntee from the awesome band Swingin Utters
offers to step in and play. Things with Greg are rough at first. His
playing style was vastly different from Forry's. But we have a
show coming that we really didn't want to cancel. We have a
few really rough rehearsals and do the show. It was a disaster.
Aaron cannot lock in with Greg and the songs sound disjointed
and bad. It was one of those shows that you just cant wait for it
to be over. We sounded terrible that night and Aaron was really
depressed because of his inability to lock in with Greg. A few
weeks pass and Aaron announces that he is leaving the band as
well. This doesn't come as a surprise, he really was unhappy
after Forry left. This is another huge blow for Romeo's Dead.
Losing Aaron was a huge deal for me personally. He is the only
guitar player I have worked with since I was 16 years old. He is
my best friend and it was never the same for me after he left the
band. Jay and I agree to continue going and see what happens
with Mans Ruin/Artemis. We have worked to hard to let it go
and I have always been one to go down with the ship...

We hire Patrick Revac on guitar (ex-Simon Stinger) a smoking
guitar player but really unreliable. He was always late for
practice or didn't show up at all. Greg didn't get along with him
at all and the 2 shows we did with Pat were sub par to say the
least. We fired Pat. Around this time Mans Ruin finally pulled the
plug on Romeo's Dead. After stringing us along for months they
decided cut us loose without recording a note. Labels can do
that ya know (aint the music business grand!!)...We hire Mike
Minority from the hardcore band Idiots to play guitar. He is
great. Works hard, plays awesome and has been a good friend
and fan of the band for a long time. Things start to get better.
We play a festival in Modesto that rocked. Girls tops coming
off, the band is playing tight and that night we feel like a band
again. We play a few more successful shows but things start to
fall apart. Disinterest in the band starts to stem from Jayson and
myself. We had been dragged through music business hell and
the strain was just getting to us. The band was playing good but
it just didn't feel good. It's hard to say what was up but it wasn't
good. Meanwhile I was dating a girl in San Diego and made the
decision to move there in the fall. I told the band that I was
moving but would come up for shows from time to time. They
were disappointed but I knew what I had to do make myself
happy. (I still live in San Diego and love it). I did come back for
2 shows in January 2001. They were fun but uneventful. After
that the band pretty much fell apart. We never really had an
official break up but it was pretty much understood. The old
web site came down. That was it in my mind.

Summer 2001

Meanwhile, for the past year Forry has been playing in the
Sonoma County punk band The Burdens. They break up in the
spring of 2001.  Forry, Jayson, Aaron and I are bored out of
minds and we all start to talk again. (we buried the hatchet with
Forry months before). We start to think that it would be fun to
get back together to do a show and to record some tunes we
wrote for the 2nd album that never got recorded. Well as I write
this, I have come back from a weekend of rehearsing with all the
original guys. It seems nothing has changed. Jayson is still a
swaggering rock-n-roll ego machine, Forry the coolest guy I
know, and Aaron my best friend and songwriting partner still has
the power to amaze me with his original style of playing. We all
fall back into the songs as if we had been rehearsing for months.
It feels great and we are all excited to get back on the stage with
each other. At the time of this writing we have our "reunion
show" (how cliché') booked for Oct. 11th and plans to hit the
studio around the first of the year. Plus a brand new
romeosdead.com is up (but you knew that, your looking at it)
What’s to come? Who knows. Right now we don't care. We
just wanna rock!!!...Thanks for reading this long ass story. It's
not over. Stay Tuned......Zane Smith