1993-1998
Strongarm came from South Florida. Before they formed Strongarm, the guys used to be in other bands. Jason, Chris and Chad were in a band called Ikthus, Josh and Nick played in Endure (this band had a song called "Together" which was covered by Strongarm and put as a hidden track on the Advent Of A Miracle CD) and right before forming Strongarm, Nick had left Endure and played in a band called Tension. Strongarm started in 1993 and first released a 4 track demo called These Times That Try Men's Souls (featuring the songs "Count The Cost", "Trials", "Remaining" and "Strenghtened In Faith". Later, there was a 3 track nameless demo recorded at this guy Tony Bartoli's house. It featured "Forgiven", "Stand Together" (both re-recorded for Atonement) and the otherwise unreleased song "Unfold" (click here for MP3). These demos caught the attention of the label Tooth & Nail, who signed them. They released Atonement in 1995. This was the line-up at the time of their debut release:
Nick Dominguez - Guitar Joshua Colbert - Guitar Chris Carbonell - Drums Chad Neptune - Bass Jason Berggren - Vocals
You can look at a copy in cache of how their artist page at Tooth & Nail looked like at that time by clicking here. You'll see some strange things when you look at the line-up. After they released this album, they had a guy called Bob Franquez on guitar for a few months replacing Nick and besides that, singer Jason was going to leave the band. They were looking for a while for a good singer but finally they decided that drummer Chris would do the vocals. So they attracted a new drummer called Steve Kleisath. He also played in a band called Shai Hulud at the time; a band that had pretty much a similar sound. One of the reasons for this fact was that Joshua had played with Shai Hulud's guitar player Matt Fox around 1991 in a band called Planet X. They discovered that hardcore didn't necessarily have to mean powerchords... they experimented with other kind of chord arrangements and melody that led to the sound that distinguished both Strongarm and Shai Hulud from the hardcore scene at the time. In 1997 they released their second CD called The Advent Of A Miracle. The line-up for this album was:
Nick Dominguez - Guitar Joshua Colbert - Guitar Steve Kleisath - Drums Chad Neptune - Bass Chris Carbonell - Vocals
After this CD, it was silent for a while. Then finally in 1998 -after having played their last show at Cornerstone- it was official that the band had broken up. This is what Steve Kleisath said about it in an interview:
As far as the reason Strongarm broke up people always wonder. It wasn't any one thing; the commitment level needed wasn't there anymore. Two of the guys were married, Chris and Josh, and they weren't available to tour. And just to write a whole new album for us takes a long time. We had a few ideas, actually had a few new songs, which will probably never be released. The time that it would take to do it and then know we wouldn't be able to tour off it just wasn't worth it. We were supposed to go to Europe, and that fell through, which really took the wind out of our sails, we had planned it the summer before, and we were planning our whole lives around being gone for a month and that fell through at the last minute, like on our way to the airport. The promoter who set us up and also set us up with Zao and Living Sacrifice who were gonna meet us out there, he never sold the tickets, and that really let the wind out of our sails. That wasn't why we broke up, but at that point we sorta got the feeling "alright we’ve been around a while, I think we are in the twilight of the band."
But after a while Nick, Steve, Josh and Chad apparently couldn't live without being in a band so they decided to form a new band called Further Seems Forever.Click here to see how they announced it on the Strongarm homepage at the time. They found a vocalist called Chris Carraba to fill up Chris Carbonell's place. The musical direction had switched from hardcore to emo, and also the missionary aspect that Strongarm clearly had was no longer there.
In 2000, Strongarm made a reunion appearance at Furnace Fest. It was the same line-up as it was when they broke up. On the song "Trials", they had their buddy Matt Fox on drums.
Source: http://www.xs4all.nl/~stapel/strongarm/biography.htm