STORY OF THE YEAR
ANTHEM OF OUR DYING DAY

BIG BLUE MONKEY OFFSPRING
GOLDEN ARCH
WHO ARE THESE GUYS?
STAND APART
ANTHEM OF OUR DYING DAY
PAGE AVENUE
SIDEWALKS AND PANSIES
LAYING TRACKS
BATTLE OF THE BANDS

BIG BLUE MONKEY OFFSPRING

The band, Story of the Year, started off as a band called, Big Blue Monkey. They hailed from deep in the blues heartland gateway city of St. Louis, Missouri. The verdict is still out if the band swiped its previous name from one of the inflatable animals at a local used cars sales lot.

GOLDEN ARCH

During the late 90's, Big Blue Monkey made the rounds at the local gig and hotspots of St. Louis and released a few EPs along the way. They were heavier then, more like the Deftones than their current emo-punk sound. The lineup fluctuated as many emerging bands do and soon the group chose a new handle to represent them, Story of the Year was born.

WHO ARE THESE GUYS?

Story of Year is comprised of Dan Marsala on vocals, Ryan Phillips and Phillip Sneed on guitar, Adam Russell on bass and Josh Wills on drums. Originally from St. Louis, the band now resides in Orange County, CA.

STAND APART

An unusual label for a new band, "Story of the Year" is classified as having "clean" lyrics, impressive when so many revert to the cheap thrills offered by being explicit.

ANTHEM OF OUR DYING DAY

Guitarist Ryan Phillips admits, "It's not really about dying. I wrote all the lyrics for that one. It was one of the few songs that Dan didn't write. And, it's about ghosts."

PAGE AVENUE

In regards to their new album, 'Page Avenue', Ryan Phillips elaborates, "We're all from St. Louis and we all moved out to Los Angeles to do the record and were out there for quite awhile. Eventually, it wasn't a planned theme, but the whole album kind of took on like a whole sentimental, missing-home type of vibe, and a lot of the songs, including, 'Sidewalks', are about missing home and missing friends and memories and stuff like that."

SIDEWALKS AND PANSIES

Their new single 'Sidewalks' is not about sidewalks either, Sneed stated, "It ended up being a big collection of metaphors, hopefully universal, so that people can put whatever they want to it. We wanted it to just be an acoustic thing, we just kind of went at it at a really different attitude than all the other songs and it ended up great. We had the opportunity to do some strings on it. It's my favorite song on the album because I'm a big pansy and I like that sort if thing."

LAYING TRACKS

A follow-up to 'Page Avenue' is in the works and recording sessions will get underway in January of 2005. John Feldmann will once again produce, he discovered the band way back when they were just a bunch of blue monkeys.

BATTLE OF THE BANDS

There is bad blood between Story of the Year and the band, Godsmack. Following Story of the Year's performance at a radio festival in Noblesville, Indiana, Godsmack's road crew assaulted the band as they left the stage.

Apparently they were mad that leadsinger, Dan Marsala had excited the crowd asking the fans sitting on the lawn to come to the front of the stage and rock out. The band had left the stage feeling they had turned a lackluster event into a true rock show, but the Godsmack's production manager and crew were less than pleased. They jumped the band and were all over Dan. Story of the Year's tour manger stepped in to stop them and Godsmack's crew pummeled him in response. Including their tour manager, Adam, Dan and Phil all ended up blooded and bruised. Only drummer, Joshua Willis escaped harm having entered the dressing rooms backstage only moments before the attack. Godsmack did not apologize for the behavior of their crew and to top things off when the police arrived, Godsmack's crew were released while Story of the Year were detained. One of the officers on the scene stated, "he wasn't putting up their kind and that he could personally guarantee that nothing will happen to anyone that kicked our ass." By the end of it, the Noblesville Police Department had no official record of the melee. Story of the Year has since removed the post from their website and replaced it with a note stating, "I took the Godsmack post down because we are going to ask them to go get some ice cream with us."