FROM.!

Download: From. - Demo

(youtube link at the bottom of the post)

From. was an eclectic surf-influenced band from Redondo Beach, California.  Though short lived, they were instrumental in the development of the scene that most of the bands I have written about so far were a part of. I talked to drummer Sean Johnson and guitarist Daniel Woods.
Sean, Daniel, and bassist Dan McLeod had been playing in bands for years before coming together to form From.  Sean started playing drums at age 11, and was in his first band in the 6th grade.  One of his earliest was a ska band with Dan McLeod called Nasty Nate, a reference to the movie Half Baked.  He later replaced Matt Larrabee as drummer in the punk band Code 7 along with Tony Conte and Sean Loeffler.
Sean:

"In a weird way Sean Loeffler inspired me to pave my own way and book shows. He definitely hustled booking shows for us, and even though we were playing like the Whiskey pay-to-play stuff, that drive really inspired me to move on to the next level." 

After Code 7 broke up, Sean started playing with Daniel Woods.  Woods had begun playing guitar around 1996-7, around the same time that he was going to see local punk shows at the now defunct Wolves Den.
Daniel W:

"What got me wanting to play guitar were two things, Kurt Cobain, and I remember listening to All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix and I just couldn't believe that was a guitar, and I thought, 'that sounds really cool, I want to learn how to do that.'"

Their first performance together was in a "jokey 80's metal cover band" for their high school battle of the bands, but they quickly went in another direction.
Sean:

"I had always wanted to be in a straight up surf band, just a real simple surf group, so Daniel and I wrote this thing called Graveyard Stomp that we submitted to KROQ for some Halloween competition.  They never played it on the radio but it sort of got a bug up our butt to start writing music.  So we started writing simplistic surf music.  Then once McLeod decided to stay in the band with us we started getting a little more weird."

The first show as From. was in February of 2002, at the Knights of Columbus hall in Redondo Beach with Playground Warfare, Scarpochi, Fade Scene, and Odella.

They immediately stood out among other South Bay bands because of their unusual, eclectic, and sometimes nonsensical-seeming style.
Sean:

"Our influences were so vast… It started with surf and on the surface it was always surfish with Daniel's tone, and I like playing surf beats, but we started integrating our other influences like Frank Zappa, Mr Bungle, some of the jazz we were listening to at the time." 

Shortly after forming, they recorded their 6 song demo.
Sean:

"We recorded the demo in our high school band room.  I was working on recording stuff in high school and our band teacher let us spend the weekend in the band room, lock the door, be there and record it, so we just knocked it out in a weekend.  Our friend Dominique did the artwork, she did it on a scratch board.  On the top right there's a little head with glasses… that's her.  She did a really good job!"

From. continued to play shows regularly around the South Bay at venues like Sacred Grounds and Suzy's, as well as out of town in places like Arts in Action in Downtown LA.  In the summer of 2002, they went on a brief West Coast tour with Two Minute Hate.
During that same summer, From. got together with Jon Hylander of Two Minute Hate to record their album.
Sean:

Jon was learning to record stuff at that point and wanted to record us as practice, so we went ahead and recorded every song we had.  And that turned into "Copernicus".

Because of some difficulties with the pressing plant, however, From's debut album did not see the light of day while they were together as a band.
Sean:

"[Copernicus] didn't get released until a year later because the pressing plant I hired ripped me off.  I payed for it and then they went out of business.  I had to threaten to sue them… I had talked to a lawyer because I was calling them and calling them and no answer.  Then I had my dad pretend to be a lawyer and threaten to sue them, and slowly but surely we ended up getting the product.  Sort of my first foray into learning the shadiness of some of the music world."

Despite the problems releasing it, Sean looks back on the album fondly.
Sean: 

"I listen to [Copernicus] now, and in a way I think its some of the best stuff I've ever done.  There's no pretense."

 

By November 2002, From. was ready to call it quits. 
Daniel W:

"Dan McLeod decided that he didn't want to do it anymore.  He wanted to jam with some other guys.  I think he thought of it as a drag to have to practice all the time.  I think it was too much for him at the time.  Then he went to Humboldt.  That might have been part of it, knowing that he wanted to move up to Humboldt, he just didn't want to put in the effort anymore."

Sean and Daniel Woods quickly formed Vaudeville, a band that continues to play yearly to this day.  His time playing in the South Bay scene left a lasting impression on Sean.
Sean:

"There was this ethos where you have to think about the audience, you can't be greedy.  And that was the cool thing about growing up in the South Bay and being around punk bands and not really being in a punk band, just carrying that ethos throughout my life now.  Even now, if I book a show at say the Echo I don't want to charge $10, I just feel wrong doing it, even though its sort of the norm now.  Especially Two Minute Hate, I think you guys helped shaped that in me too, and were on the same wavelength.  I'm looking at this flyer that we made in San Francisco, and I remember actually making it in San Francisco.  It's all hand-written, it's that like cut-slips-of-paper-and-paste-them-on-other-pieces-of-paper type of flyer and... It's really fun, I really miss that stuff.  It was all hands on, you hand made your own demos, or 7"s, it sounds cliche "d.i.y." but you did do it yourself, and that was a cool thing.  And that's why I started Otik Records... I'm not going to try to get From. signed, let's just  put out an album.  For better or for worse, that's what I've been doing this whole time." 

Enjoy the demo below! From.'s album Copernicus can be streamed and downloaded here, courtesy of Otik Records.