BIO

Grover Kent was formed as Wisenheimer in 1995.   They played irregularly under that name until 2001 when some mean people in Florida made them change it.  Something about “having it first” or something.  Whatever.  They are still going to take over the world one basement at a time.

See below for a brief history:

As of this moment, Grover Kent is:
 

Rich Conroy
Guitar, lead vocals
 
 

Dan
Bass, vocals

Jay Slappy
Drums, vocals

Matt
Guitar, vocals

(All photos Mel Chrome)

 

Ok class, pay attention!  YOU!  Spit out that gum! Take notes, there will be a test!

A brief history of Grover Kent
By Rich

The basis of the band currently called Grover Kent was formed in 1995 from the dilapidated corpse of the Thirsty Cows and was called Wisenheimer, and, for the briefest of moments, consisted of Rich (me!)(g/v) current S.T.E.M.S./Comrades drummer Mike Random (on kazoo.  DUH, he played DRUMS!) and current "missing person" Jay Mills on bass.  Jay had been in the cows by the way.  Jay lasted all of one practice before he decided that he wasn’t cut out for the pop punk life any more.  Yes at the age of  like 24, he was too old.  Playing in a band with me will ruin ya I tell you!

Bergen County resident and college mate of mine, bassist Jim Dilworth was then brought into the fold for a few reasons:
1) he was an amazing bass player
2) he had a wicked sense of humor
3) he looked a lot like Ben Franklin
4) and he said “yes” when I asked him to join.

The three of us (Mike, Rich and Jim) practiced and wrote songs for the better part of a year.  Then Mike said he couldn’t do it anymore.  Undersatdable being he was in three other bands besides ours.  Jim’s friend Joel was brought in, tried out and hired on the spot.  He proceeded to never show up to another practice.  Mike from Buzzkill even sat in once, but, logistically, he lived in New Brunswick or something and we practiced in Fairfield, and well, that’s not real convenient.  So, upon hearing that Steve Ugly (then playing guitar and singing in the Plug Uglies) had played drums in Yellboy, I proceeded to ask him to play  drums for Wisenheimer.  He wasn’t sure until I played him a tape of stuff we had recorded at practice.  He was psyched, and we scheduled practice.

Long story short, we had a practice, it rocked.  Steve was in.  Jim then proceeded to drop off the face of the earth.  I told Steve this and after a few weeks of constantly canceling practice and Steve basically quit.  By that I mean he quit music pretty much until he joined the Lawndarts in 1997 or so.  I’ve seen Jim like two times since.  Damn shame really, I miss him.

So, I was left by m’self, until I resopnded to an ad looking for a guitar player for a pop punk band.  This is 1998 or so.  It was there I met Jason O (current GK bass player) and Endless Matt (who later joined Slappy.  And so did Jason.  See how complex this is getting?).  Nothing came of that band but I asked Jason to maybe help me record some songs I had written.  Soon enough we were writing together, and got a drummer named Bob (who was also in Hopless Dregs of Humanity) and began to think about playing out.  Bob had a huge car and one pair of sticks.  Amazing, really.  So I was in the band with a 19 year old bass player, and a 17 year old drummer.  Did I mention I was 29 at this point?  we were never able to play out with Bob as he quit in December of 1999.

After a fruitless search of 5 months, I asked Steve Ugly if he’d be interested in playing for us again and he did.  We FINALLY played out August 11th, 2000 at Connections in Clifton.  It was a week before my wedding.  There’s a video of that show I think, if Greg from the Comrades still has it.  I bet we suck on it : )

Well, we started recording our album in LATE 2000.  It came out in November of 2003!  We actually only finished it in Feb 2003 (after some re-records) so at least we can say we release them faster than Def Leppard or something.  Steve quit to join Don Juan Destroyer full time on April 23rd, 2002.  It was around this time that we got a notice from another band who owned the Wisenheimer name saying, in essence “Stop using it or my lawyer will tell you to stop using it.” So after the worst thing that could happen to us (Steve bailing), we had to change our name.  My wife basically came up with Grover Kent, and being that EVERY OTHER NAME WE LIKED WAS TAKEN (Yes even crap like Atomic Lunchbox.  At last count, there were three Atomic Lunchboxes.  Good luck with that one boys.) we went with a name that sounded like a solo artist, but was representative of a unit (ha ha, I said “unit”).  It was odd at first, but hey, we grew into it and now it fits us better.

We got Jay from Mazeffect (formerly in Slappy) to play drums as a “temp” but he seems to have resigned himself to the job, having done it for the last year and a half.  We played our first show with the new lineup (me, Jason, Jay Slappy, and a slightly tipsy Endless Matt on guitar.  See, I told you all these people keep showing up!  Small world!) and the final Souse House show in Jersey City.  I’m glad everyone was so freaking smashed, because we were pretty awful.  This is not my opinion only, there is a recording!  I laugh now, but was pretty crushed at the time, because we were playing with a bunch of bands I really admire.  Honestly, it was the longest 20 minutes of my life, but it’s over now, and as they say, Lif goes on (c).  And Matt?  We played an acoustic show with Matt on guitar this past June that went really well even though the three of us (me Jason and Matt) were wound up REALLY tight about it.  I thought Matt was going to throw up.  Actually I thought we were all going to throw up, but we made it through unscathed.  We’ll probably do it again too, sooner or later.

Currently, we don’t play as often as I’d like, but what can you do? 

Anyway 2005 is upon us!  Matt is a full fledged member of the band, and we're writing new stuff as fast as we can.  Hopefully you'll come along for the ride.

Rich

ANOTHER TAKE, By JASON!

Complete history, according to Jason -
So here's my recollection to best of my ability (some of it's a little foggy, because you know... um.. yeah you know)
Matt and I had been playing rock and roll since like 1994. We never played anything good, but showed an occasional glimmer of potential, some stuff happened and we decided to begin recruiting for yet another band (we had a name but it's so good, someone would definitely steal it so I'm keeping it a secret). We posted a couple flyers in record stores and got two responses. One from a guy named Carlos and another from a guy named Rich. I was living in Philly at the time so practice was a little tough to juggle but we were determined to complete the equation and rock (also hell bent on the fact that we could do right in a world of punk rock wrong). We tried out Carlos on drums and it was disaster, he wasn't a very good drummer and was actually more interested in playing guitar. He wasn't what we were looking for, and was kind of a jerk, so we told him no (but we did get Jay Slappy a free cymbal out of it). Then there was Rich. I talked to him a few times but I don't think he ever really tried out (like I said... foggy). I'm not really sure what happened, but the next thing I remember was meeting him at the record store to exchange a tape so I can play bass on the 7" he wanted to record. He was late, so after we looked at every record 3 times over, we told Bill (working at the record store) that if some guy came in (we didn't know what he looked like or anything) looking for us, we'd be at the sandwich shop down the street. So we sat, ate sandwiches, drank soda and finally Rich showed up with a tape. I agreed, he told me the name Wisenheimer, and we went our separate ways (his fiancée was waiting in the car). Some more stuff happened in between, and somehow, now I don't really know how, but we ended up being a real band (with no drummer of course). Rich and I had pretty similar tastes in music although his back catalog was way more impressive than mine. He's like an encyclopedia.  We had gotten together a few times to go over songs, but we were both off time because there wasn't a little drummer boy keeping a steady beat. Then Bob called Rich. We practiced with him, he was also in Hopeless Dregs of Humanity (he started in both bands about the same time I think...). So we practiced, never played a show, and then Bob quit. We saw it coming, so we weren't hurt too bad. He would not show up for practice and then call the rehersal space and ask the guy there to tell us he wasn't coming. He said he'd stick around until we found someone (which is usually the case), but kept missing practice (which is also usually the case) so we called it a day (for now). So we were waiting, waiting, waiting. Then Rich asked Steve (who I later found out played drums in Yellboy, who I remember seeing at the Melody a long time ago, and liking) to play. I showed up for practice and there was this dude, bald head, army pants, looking mean as hell, and I knew this was our guy. At that first practice with Steve, I think we sounded better than we ever did with Bob. Steve knew what kind of drumming belonged in our songs and he did it without any drama. I can still see him now, saying, how does that one go, resting his hands on his lap and listening with what looked like one ear, then just playing it perfectly. He liked taking stupid pictures and had a work ethic like no other (you should have seen him sweat after practice).  We started playing shows, Rich got married, then we hit the studio. We recorded the old stuff with Jerry Manno. It sounded ok, we were on our way. We kept practicing and kept playing and I really think we were getting good (somewhere in between, Slappy had sort of just stopped, we saw that one coming too when Jay would open the sets with "hey we're Slappy and we don't practice anymore" now that's rock and roll... oh yeah, I was in the final incarnation of Slappy). It seemed like we really began to come into our own. Short sets and break-neck speed. Loud, fast and sweaty. At that time, we had also been writing new songs. This was when we did Caroline, Suddenly Summer, Kentucky Waterfall, and I had taught the guys Crissie V (a song Matt had wrote years ago). We then demoed the songs in Josh's basement. We were expecting a 4 track, but he had a pretty cool setup. We banged through the songs, and they sounded awesome. Really raw, very cool. We wanted to include them on the record, but even though they were good, and I LOVED the way they sounded, they sounded too different from the Jerry Manno stuff. So we re-recorded them at Jerry's (we also did Lumberjack Slam, a new song called Hey Kate, a Ramones cover and a Misfits cover). To this day, I think that that was our peak.
But that's when we were still called Wisenheimer. Rich found out about a band in Florida with the same name. We didn't do anything at the time, but we knew we'd probably have to change out name eventually. Back and forth, back and forth, I even went so far as to call their guitar play saying I was a friend of ours and asked him if his band still plays... I'm an idiot. Ok, so we’re playing well, changing our name to The Digs, then changed it to Grover Kent, then Steve got less interested. He eventually quit which was fine since it was obvious he didn't want to play drums for us anymore. It sucked to see him go since he was so perfect for us, and just fun to have around. But I've seen enough Behind the Music to know that drummers don't stay around very long. Fast forward a few months and Jay Slappy agreed to fill in (yeah and he's been filling in for how long now?). Our first show with him (and Matt's first guest appearance on second guitar) was a disaster. And by disaster, I mean awesome. It was the infamous Souse House finale. We were terrible, but had a great time. People still talk about that show. We played so fast, and it was just a mess that you couldn't help but like it. For a while Rich refused to discuss the show, and kept the DAT recording on a unmarked CDR never to leave his apartment, I think he's getting over it though. Our next show with Jay (not Matt this time) was great. We were a machine, and aside from a few screw-ups (we have that one on tape as well, hopefully we'll release it and make money) we rocked.
That was almost a year ago (again...kinda of foggy) but believe it or not, not much has happened since then. We've played a few times, and released a split 7" and our ever-delayed CD. Some of the songs on that first tape Rich gave me are still live standards (Suede, Pussykat), and some will never see the light of day again (Akane and Her Sisters). We wrote some new ones that we still play (Summer, Caroline) and ones that we wish we didn't (Can't Believe...).
So that's that. Next stop... your mom's house.
 
 

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