2/26/00
We are starting to get ready for out 6th U.S. Tour. All the dates should be posted shortly. This time like every other we will have a different drummer. His name is Roman and he's is several local Baltimore bands. Roads To Space Travel, The Slow Jets, and The Oranges are the ones I know of. He's a great guy with limited touring experience and has been frustrated by the fact that none of his other bands ever wanted to tour significantly so maybe we are a perfect match. We are excited to introduce him into our world of basement shows and shoestring budgets. We will have one song on the new Adeline Compilation and they will also be putting out a cd/ep and 7" in June. We are very relieved to have this stuff finally come out and can start to prepare for the next full length. We've got about half the songs written and are currently practicing with Randy and Roman on various days of the week trying to write as many songs as we can before we head out on the road in april.-Bobby Borte
History
We are a punk band from the D.C. area. We started in the spring of 1995. The original lineup was Bobby Borte (guitar, vocals), Mark Minnig (bass, vocals), Mike Hall (guitar, vocals), and Randy Davis (drums). With this lineup, we briefly toured eastern Canada in the summer of 1995. We had only played one show prior to the Canadian tour (at the Bohemian Cafe in Baltimore). That winter, we recorded our first record- a self-titled 12" on Sneezeguard. Only 500 of these were pressed, and we screened the covers ourselves.In the spring of 1996, Randy left the band. He was keeping very busy splitting time between us and the Great Unravelling. We really wanted to play more shows, and tour, so we parted ways. Phil Spence joined the band on drums. In September ‘96, we recorded the "Sprague Dawley Rats" 7", and released it on Sneezeguard. We recorded 8 songs in December 1996, while planning our first U.S. tour. Phil decided he could not afford to tour, so he left the band. With the tour already planned, we desperately needed a drummer. We found our savior one week before the tour was supposed to start- Jason Gambrell, from Columbia South Carolina. Jason used to be in Jackleg and Premonition. Lee Ashlin (another savior)filled in on drums for 1 show in Baltimore, and the first 2 shows of the tour. Then Jason went on to play the remaining 35 shows of the tour.
When we got home, Jason went back to South Carolina, and Lee Ashlin continued to play drums for us. On the winter tour, we had met Mike Jerk from Soda Jerk Records in Colorado. Mike was interested in putting out some of the songs we had recorded in December. "Sweet Merciful Crap, it's the Thumbs" (7") came out on Soda Jerk in the Spring of 1997.
We were planning another U.S. tour for the Fall of 1997. Since Lee was in school at Univ. of Maryland at the time, and also playing for the Fuses, he could not go. The next drummer recruited for the Thumbs was Tom Fortwengler. Tom was playing drums for Perestroika, and agreed to take 6 weeks off to come with us. Tom played 21 shows with us.
A rejuvinated Phil rejoined the band when we came back from tour. He had only been absent about a year, but we managed to tour twice during that time- 76 shows. The next plan was to come out with a full length. Mike volunteered to put it out on Soda Jerk. We wanted to record it around Christmas time, and then do another tour in the early Spring of 1998. But we didn't come up with the songs as quickly as we had hoped, and then Mark went on tour for a month with the Fuses. When Mark came home, we recorded "The Thumbs Make America Strong," which came out in April 1998.
In the Spring of 1998, we all made a tough decision. Mark decided to take an opportunity he had to go to New York to pursue his animation career. We decided that we needed to keep touring while we have the chance (we're no spring chickens). Mark got into a school in New York, and we decided that we would continue as a 3 piece. Mike switched from guitar to bass, and we went on our third U.S. tour for 9 weeks. It was hard to go without Mark, but we're so proud of him. He is as talented an artist as he is a musician. Hopefully Mark becomes a huge success up there (I don't see why he wouldn't), but if not, he's always welcome back with us. As for the tour, it was the most successful of the three. We played 53 shows in 63 days.
Up next on the Thumbs agenda was a five week U.S tour with drumming sensation Pat from Dementia 13 and Man Without Plan (we had already dubbed him 'Friendly Pat'). He hails from Portchester, Ny and graciously volunteered to jump in the van with Mike and I for an abbreviated version of our last tour. This time there wasn't any problem with the heat because we played some of the coldest spots in the the states in feb and early march. 38 shows in 38 days. This tour is a point of pride for us and a new band record. Shows would fall through but somehow we were lucky enough to patch the holes.
Bug arrived in the beginning of August and we are starting to get back on our feet with a full calendar of shows for September and Japanese tour in October.