Nihilistic Bliss

A Biography of Players & a Brief History of the Band

          First, about the Band... any adjectives used will not in any way suffice for what we actually sound like, but we'll try just the same to come up with a few that may at least pique your interest enough to wonder if we REALLY sound the way WE think we do. Any ole way you look at what's written here, we intend to rip your face off sonically, throw you down on the floor, take you out of your world, put you in ours... and then make you think a little bit. We won't go into all that world domination shit just yet... but if you like loud, dirty, braying guitar played with subtle deftness and ferocity, with a fair measure of tasty, clean, unexpected riffs to mix it up... if you like deep, punchy bass licks that seem to hover right between the rhythm of the guitar and drums, and then glue them together... If you like thundering, expansive, explosive, syncopated drums with just enough touch thrown in to keep you from breaking your neck and to keep you honest... If you like a story woven... shouted... screamed, and occasionally even whispered at you and to you... about sacred cow subjects that are analyzed, dissected, stitched up and trotted back out just for your appreciation, consideration, denial, outrage, approval... WHATEVER ... we just WON'T accept your apathy... we're dangerous that way... if we smell your apathy, we might just have to jump off the stage and rip you to pieces... if you like THAT shit, then we are the band you will want to follow, participate in, and grow with, cause we hear you, and we're listening and watching as we're pummeling and satisfying your musical libido. Being the Repugnantly Indifferent, Narcissist, Bummer, Pisces, In the Corner, Alter Boy, Broken Toy Store, Sharks, Aptitude, Cenior Sitizens Mind Control and other shit we are working on, along with the synapses you send us, is a tough job, BUT WE LIKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have been doing to ourselves what we want to do to everyone else as a band for about a year now... but don't let that fool you... we've been out there forever... waiting to pounce. And now a word from our sponsors.

We are a self produced band; that means we write our own music, we record our own music, we arrange and produce our own music , we get our music ready for our listeners, (CD MP3 DVD LIVE etc etc), via our own sound studio and live efforts, and then we proceed to show up and dominate; all the time and every time. ASK and we will rock that shit.

The Players:

JOSH QUINN: Guitars, Lead Vocals, Backing Vocals, Lyrics, Music.

Josh was spat out into the Midwest, specifically in Olathe, KS sometime in the early eighties.  His father decided to flee the sludge of civilization before too long and moved his family to the Arkansas Ozarks and pursue a life more suitable to his taste. All this had some bearing on how Josh grew up and developed. This was especially true considering the gauntlet of DNA challenged, blue state, republican headed influenced sons of a bunch of toothless, sister fucking rednecks he had to thread his way through as he was growing up. Josh was always an outsider, desolation and anxiety being a liberal constant, and an unwelcome friend. While he and his brother battled the endless quiet and overt frustration and boredom of their lives combined, and his own singularly, he decided to turn his outrage back out toward all those who would consider him an outsider. Luckily, his parents had great taste in music, so he was exposed from an early age to all the greats of the late sixties and seventies. The soothing balm of The Cream, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Zep, etc. etc. etc was at least a saving grace, at most a formative pillar in his younger days. When he became a teenager, all he needed was a vehicle for his angst. It was around this time that he discovered a little band called Nirvana. Kurt Cobains' music and lyrics spoke to him as if Cobain had been watching and listening the whole time. Finally, someone understood, someone spoke for him, someone showed him the way. He was gifted with a guitar in his early teens, and more importantly, the freedom to use it as he saw fit. He also discovered that he too had the ability to turn a phrase and speak volumes in just a line or two. Enter the beginnings of the scathing guitar and social articulation that will become, through whatever means necessary and available, Nihilistic Bliss.

Chad Kinne: Bass Guitar, Contributing Lyricist, Music.

            Chads' story is deeply intertwined with that of his brother Josh. Born in the mid seventies in Olathe, Kansas. Chad, as the older brother, often took the brunt of less than perfect situations, as older brothers often do. He also was deeply influenced by his environment at home and in the closed world of the deep Newton County Ozarks. To say he grew up in a world forgotten and in many cases left behind by the rest of the country, would be a gross understatement. Truly a round peg forced into a square hole, Chad would break the trail for his younger brother in many respects. The first to have to deal with social distortion, culture shock, isolation, frustration and the ubiquitous hillbilly mentality of the natives, he had the choice to submit and assimilate, to dumb himself down, to join the cliques of Joe Bob the Red Nosed Hick, or to stand and deliver as his own man. He refused the invitation to play their hillbilly games, and chose to go his own way. Chad immersed himself in the raw attitude and stripped down expression of the early to mid eighties punk and metal music. Considering the situation of his environment, he also turned to the Martial Arts as a solace, a form of structure and discipline, and a way to make certain that the local Jimmy Joe Bobs knew that it would be dangerous to fuck around with him or his brother. Forging the way for his younger brother, Chad was directly responsible for introducing most if not all the musical influences of himself and his brother. Drawn naturally to the percussiveness and brooding power of the Bass Guitar, resistance to the pull of heavy music was futile. Instead of resisting, as was his defense and nature, he gave himself willingly to be consumed by the monster. Continuing in the nineties to be influenced by the emerging Seattle Sound, and late in the decade by the dark inexorable pull of music such as Marilyn Manson, the die was set.

Kelly Davis: Drums, Percussion, Contributing Lyricist, Production, Sound Engineering.

Born in Dallas, TX in the late Sixties, Kelly always had a thing for rhythm. From the time he was two years old, he drove his parents nuts beating on anything available. Pots and pans, furniture, the family dog... you name it, he banged on it. His house was always filled with music. His dad would come home from work and spin records all night long. His early childhood was filled with sounds; BB King caressing Lucille, Canned Heat saying they were Goin' up the Country, Leon Russell, all the great blues and rock bands of the sixties and seventies. At nine, he discovered The Beatles and wore out countless eight track tapes. He tried playing piano, then guitar, but figured out he had dumb fingers. At twelve, he got his first real drum kit, and he's been playing them every since. As an early teen, he became aware of a trio that went by the name of Rush, and the things Neil Peart could do with a drum kit inspired him to take percussion seriously. In the early eighties, the second wave of British Metal was on the rise, and Kelly took to it like a duck to water. He re-discovered the first wave, got turned on to Bonham in Led Zep, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and all the late seventies heavies. Madness ensued, and he formed his first band at fourteen, of course it was heavy. He has been punishing skins and brass steadily for over twenty five years. Around the same time that he picked up the sticks, he also got into the recording process and became fascinated with the process of capturing the sounds he and his bandmates produced. Kelly has been around for quite a while now, playing in at least a dozen bands some of which were moderately sucessful as an opening act for bands including Pantera, Robin Trower, and many other nationally known acts.  A walking example of the dichotomy of man, he is a mad scientist in the studio, an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to sonic properties, but put him behind the kit, he transforms into a pure rhythmic predator, pursuing relentlessly, tuned to the kill, seeking blood, rending, tearing, smashing, DESTROYING the drums, yet remaining a finely tuned machine, a study in economy, never wasting any part of his prey. At one moment he is crouched in the grass, stalking, the next he explodes from cover and takes what is his. He is not a young lion, but still a lion in all respects, in his prime and not to be taken lightly. When you see him play, you can see the sharp glitter of animal intelligence light his eyes and know that he is in that other place, on the hunt.

The songs posted here were recorded in our own studio, using 2 eight track alesis adats, a 16x4 alesis board (studio 32), an alesis quadraverb digital effects unit, a handful of stomp boxes, a handful of decent microphones, and ALOT of imagination. All in all... about $1500 worth of seconhand stuff we got on e-bay. The tracks were mixed and run stereo into a delta 4inx4out breakout box and pc card, and then mastered using cakewalk protracks 16 software.

Josh plays a Seymour Duncan loaded Fender Strat (the good kind), and an old Ibanez that we suspect may have come from another planet, an Ibanez Toneblaster head w/ a 4x12 halfstack, and an old Fender combo that might just be held together with dust.

Chad plays a Peavey bass that has sweet action and alot of cool lookin knobs, through a Peavey combo 115.

Kelly plays (or punishes depending on where your standing) four Yamaha Stage Custom drums (22" bass, 10" 12" and 14" toms) a 20" Artist Limited kick bought at a garage sale and converted to a floor tom, and a SHITLOAD of custom brass by Zildjian, Paiste, and wuhon. The snare is a custom Premier, the double pedal is by Pearl, the hardware is by Who Knows and I Don't Remember, and most importantly... the throne is by Porkpie.

We'd tell you how we got this sound out of all this piecemeal junk... but we'd have to kill you, and that just wouldn't be neighborly now... would it?