Denny- Guitar, Bass, Vocals
My name is Denny and I like to think of myself as lending small town flare to a big city band. Growing up in Spokane, WA. I cut my rock'n'roll teeth playing in bad cover bands and waiting outside the Coliseum for autographs of such bands as Aerosmith and Iron Maiden. You probably know too much already.
While stumbling through college I met up with Ean and we started the quintessential "bad cover band". When that broke up due to in-fighting and just plain fighting, Ean and I started an "originals" (not "original") band and nabbed Josh from another bad cover band. But the lesson to be learned here is not that bad cover bands are springboards for future artists of tomorrow, indeed they're not! But more importantly, that we each had a special skill to bring to Sicko. Ean is a motivational speaker and general Cheez-Whiz wunderkind. Josh, being from L.A., is well connected and I have managed to come up with some of the dumbest band names, album titles, and songs in rock'n'roll history. Thank you and good night.
Ean- Guitar, Bass, Vocals
Ok, here is the story of Ean. My parents moved from the East Coast to Boulder, Colorado in 1968, and gave birth to baby boy #1 in 1969. By 1972 they were living in Seattle, and breeding with a vengeance. Amongst brothers, sister, dogs, cats, a conure, ferrets, a goose, fish, guinea pigs, mice, hamsters, rats, snakes, a camon, and droves of neighbor children, I was raised to be a shameless geek. I attended Mcgilvra Elementary School, St. Joseph's Grade School, Washington Middle School, and finally, Roosevelt High School, whose echoing halls had once been home to rock stars such as Nikki Sixx, Duff McKagen, and Il Duce. Playing in a few HORRIFIC cover bands, I began to develop my taste for bands like AC/DC, Van Halen, and Led Zeppelin. Upon graduation in 1987, my father offered me one of two plans: Plan A) "Go to college". Plan B) "I will drag you physically down to the local recruiting office and YOU may choose either..." 1) Army 2) Navy 3) Air Force 4) Marines. He also added, "NO Coast Guard, that's a bunch of bullshit". Faced with this charming array, I chose the lazier route and trundled off to pursue a slightly less than challenging degree in Psychology.
In my sophomore year, my good friend Marlin took my live Led Zeppelin cassette, and taped The Sex Pistols and The Descendants over it. In case you were wondering just how "back in the day" Ean from Sicko's punk roots extended, this was my formative moment, and it occurred in late 1988. Joining the awful, yet seminal group, "Baby So High" later that year, I began the life of the indie rocker. This group was original pop punk with more than a hint of Rush in it. Eeeeshhh.... We played shows, made demo tapes, were hated, grew our hair, wore funny clothes, sustained constant rejection from girls and eventually kicked out our singer, the unfortunate Marlin. Several bands followed over the next few years, most notably, the Pullman All Stars, which is where I first played with Denny. This band played covers by The Lemonheads, Black Flag, Green River, Mudhoney, etc., and wore sillier outfits at every successive show. Breaking up because of a intra-band fight between Denny and John (later of TreePeople and Stuntman fame), we called it quits in semester 1 of my final year of college. As an interesting side note, the person who gave John the excessive volume of alcohol necessary to instigate the fight was my future bandmate and long time pal, Lo Fi Bri, currently of The Primate 5. Leaving college to pursue an internship and a future as a counselor, I returned to Seattle in January of 1991. Whilst working at various good-deedly type establishments such as, an adolescent drug and alcohol treatment center, a day care for children under the protection of the child protective service, and a day treatment center for mentally ill adults, I began to work on starting a band. Playing with Scott (earlier of Baby So High and The Pullman All Stars), and Johnny Ray (later to be a replacement drummer for Sicko and a Singer for Top Drawer Records' Old Man) the doomed "Pop Smear" was formed. With a name like that, we should have been killed, not just doomed. John got tired of playing drums for us, quit, and we began our search for a drummer. Scott also started to make noise about quitting, promising not to leave until after I found a new guitarist. Calling up my old Pullman All Stars Pal Denny, I invited him to move out to Seattle from Spokane and start a band. He was going to move anyway, and promptly arrived at my door. And stayed a while. Scott lasted for about one more practice, and then vacated.
Our drummer search began anew, and we were introduced to what still may possibly be the dumbest collection of mustachioed butt rockers in the history of the modern world. Meeting Queensryche enthusiast after Queensryche enthusiast, we resolved to get a decent drummer or die trying (or get a drum machine). Introduced to Josh by the then-frightening and now-still-frightening Justin, we were immediately impressed by Josh's speed and simplicity. The band was formed, and the name was chosen. I feel that I must give a bit of an explanation here... at this point I had played in 7 bands all of which had lasted less than a year. I felt that if history repeated itself, the issue of whether we had a good name or not would be moot. Thus, I wasn't worried about the long term implications of naming a band "Sicko". Unfortunately, this happened to be the one band I have ever been in that didn't fail utterly, and so, I am forever labeled a "Sicko" and my grandmother is very disappointed. Meandering through the world of "Grunge Explosion" Seattle, we played shows, made demo tapes, were hated, cut our hair, wore funny clothes, sustained constant rejection from girls and eventually kicked out a record on the local "punk" record label, Empty Records. The rest is history...
Next week, The Top Drawer Records Story: "How to piss off a lot of people, ruin you indie cred, and get into debt in 6 months (or less)."
Josh- Drums
Josh "A Drumming Tradition" It began, like many things, with a sperm and an egg. I spent most of formative years in Los Angeles, CA where my brother and I were regularly encouraged to find an interest in music. I tried the guitar, the violin and even the ukulele. Eventually I discovered the beauty of constructively hitting things with sticks. The first song I ever learned to play was "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen. I started on a set of practice pads which my mother was nice enough to buy for me. Around age thirteen I sold a dirt bike I had and bought an old Ludwig set...it cost me $550 and it was my life's savings. I had recently been turned on to Ozzy Osbourne and Van Halen and had decided that being a rock star was about as good as it could get. So, I quit taking lessons (Eddie Van Halen didn't need 'em either) and began playing through headphones with the baddest of the bad: Alex Van Halen, Tommy Lee, Niko McBrain. Eventually I got into a band called "Attack". We were about as good as any mid-teen metal band can be...complete with songs like, "The Storm Never Dies", "Too Late" and my personal favorite, "Under Attack" (it went nicely with the name). We played only a few shows, managing to come in last at a local battle of the bands competition. We also made a tape which I now sheepishly pull out every once in a while.
The big change musically came around fifteen when my brother went to college and started sending back tapes he had made of punk bands...The Replacements, X, Husker Du, Butthole Surfers, Cringer, The Mr. T Experience...stuff like that. I decided quickly that punk rock was my future and spent the next few years learning to play faster. Eventually, after I had moved to Seattle to go to college, I played briefly in a grunge band called Hair Salad and a blues/rock band called The Gully. Eventually I was introducted to Ean and Denny through a mutual friend. They were about the only ones in Seattle at the time who didn't want to play music like Soundgarden. We hit it off immediately. Since then it's been 1-2-3-4.
Source: http://www.sicko.com/sicko/
