San Francisco's East Bay is a virtual breeding ground for current punk rock bands and the area continues to give birth to a variety of sounds. Case in point: Divit. Just East and slightly North of the East Bay lay the sleepy suburbs of Antioch, home of this melodic four-piece band. Divit have wormed under the skin of punk-bred youth all over America by means of key compilations, three Thrasher videos, releases on Bay area Coldfront Records as well as touring dates with MXPX, SAMIAM and a stint on Warped Tour 2002.
Early recordings of the band sounded not unlike Pennywise and other Los Angeles area South Bay bands, but Divit, not content with rehashing the same material, made a deliberate change of direction in the punk spectrum. A rash of personal tragedies stripped away layers of angst and became an unexpected source of inspiration. Singer and guitarist Mick Leonardy explains: "I got to touch on more serious areas of my life such as a death in the family on the song 'Sky', and a close friend's struggle with substance abuse on 'William.'" Broadcaster, Divit's Nitro debut, isn't all down in the mouth however. A wall of guitars opens the album on "Driver." "It's a fantasized perspective on a Bonnie and Clyde style road trip," says Leonardy, "and there's a bit of boy-meets-girl humor on 'The One That's In The Green Shirt.'"
While people often use a cross pollination of bands to describe Divit's sound, usually involving some sort of hybrid between Jawbreaker, Foo Fighters, and Jimmy Eat World, there is never one band or title that can be slapped on the band as a description. But then again the bands that created the variations of the "East Bay Sound" have always eluded simple pigeonholing.
One of the very few bands who can consistently pack the seeming epicenter of the East Bay, Gilman Street, Divit plans to broadcast their sound well beyond their hometown. The members of Divit are four ordinary guys with an extraordinary gift of writing and performing exceptional music. They have traded in almost all other aspects of their lives to pursue their true fix of happiness and have expanded the boundaries of the Nitro realm with their perfect blend of pop and punk sensibilities.
