Hoobastank Biography
Post-grunge quartet Hoobastank
formed in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills in early 1994, after vocalist Doug
Robb met guitarist Dan
Estrin at a high-school battle of the bands competition. The two chose to
join forces, and after adding bassist Markku
Lappalainen and drummer Chris
Hesse, Hoobastank were born. While the heavy alternative sounds of acts like
Tool and Alice
in Chains were primary influences, Hoobastank tempered the gloomier elements
of that music with a suburban California groove and an eye for accessibility.
The self-released, clumsily titled They Sure Don't Make Basketball Shorts Like
They Used To generated strong local buzz upon its 1998 release, and soon the
band had moved from backyard gigs to shows up and down the Cali coast.
Island took notice and put Hoobastank on the payroll in
August 2000, and tours with the likeminded Incubus
and flavor-of-the-moment Alien
Ant Farm followed. Hoobastank's eponymous debut dropped in November 2001,
and the singles "Crawling in the Dark" and "Running Away"
were hits at radio and MTV.
The LP went gold, and the quartet supported it with a jaunt through Asia and
Europe that summer. By early 2003, the band was back in the studio, laying down
tracks for its sophomore effort. They then played a few dates in June and July,
but were forced to cancel the remainder of the club tour when Estrin
was injured in a freak minibike accident. The guitarist was back on his feet by
October, and Hoobastank headed out with the
All-American Rejects and Ozomatli
for the Nokia Unwired tour.
The quartet offered the lead single "Out of
Control" as a free download from its website before releasing the
full-length The
Reason at the end of the year. It showcased a harder-edged vocal performance
from Robb. A
year later, the =Let It Out DVD collected the band's videos. On a 2005
co-headlining tour with Velvet
Revolver, the band received a chilly reception from some audiences and
rumors of a feud between Robb
and VR frontman Scott
Weiland were soon filling Internet message boards. "If I Were
You," the first single from their 2006 album Every Man for Himself,
addressed the whole affair. Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide