"Biography"


MENACE started in the summer of 1998 when Adam Penfold , a guitarist and songwriter, met Travis Evans, a drummer. The two were into the same music and wanted to start a band. The day after they met, they wrote their first song, "menace to society", which was basically a riff that Adam had made up and a few lines written by Travis. After that came the rock song "Cindy" which Adam had written awhile back, a really dumb song called "pornSTAR", and a hardcore punk song Psycho (you suck) . These songs made up the first MENACE demo tape, Biography, (which has been recorded over by now). Adam personally wrote "Back of the Class", "Apathetic Love" and "In my eyes" on his own. The group then added and dropped bassist Alex Heinbach who was never on any recording with the group, although "Arsenic Cooking" was written with him in mind. Later, Adam and Travis wrote a whole new batch of songs with their new drum machine. These songs are: "Blair", "Body Fluid Cleanup Kit", "Trash Talk", "Seuss", "A little bit...(cover of Mumbo#5)", and "Action". The group was heavily influenced by local band Malicous Intent, and attributed the heavyness of these songs to listening to MI's Death POP album way too many times. By this time, Travis had a full drum kit and the band made full fledged demo tapes of their previous songs plus the new "That's Life" and the intrumental "Liar Institute". The band briefly changed their name to SlimPike at this point, but changed it back to MENACE shortly after. Adam and Travis did some producing on "That's Life"(Shaggin Remix). Adam remixed "Blair" with actual scenes from the Artisan Films "Blair Witch Project". This remix is on this website as the "Blair"(movie remix). Adam also shot a video for "Menace to Society" which hopefully will be available soon. Adam threw together a few solo songs, found on the Staged Fright EP. Next, Adam's girlfriend (and eventual financee) Marie Nicole Martin wrote him an extremely beautiful poem that was no less than perfect art. "Like a Kiss Goodbye" is this poem set to music. Adam worked hard recording and overdubbed three guitars on this song, much like on the pscyhedelic "Cloudz". About this time the band got together with bassist Mike Davis and 2nd Guitarist/DJ Clay Moore. A new, five member band was proposed and titled KolorBlind but it quickly fell apart. This arrangement didn't last too long but Adam's writing ability improved greatly by practicing with the amazing "basswizard" Davis. He got Adam into Slipknot and Staind which opened so many doors to new music. Adam immiedately wrote and recorded a batch of riffs, ideas and songs which are now collecting dust. That is because the group's next turn was to all out punk/pop, totally copying the new superstars Blink182. The group permenantly added bassist Thomas Stout. who also sang lead for a bit as well, and temporarily added singer Chuck Meathrell, who is now the group's backup drummer. Thomas added the fullness to the group's live performance that was always lacking. The band also practiced and performed a pop/rock song live with amazing female vocalist Ruthanne Cain. I think the title of the song was "That Summer". The group now played punk covers (including a punked up version of "Blair") and the staple grunge anthemn, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". One of their weirder songs was a punk version of the Liberty High School fight song, which they gave titles ranging from "Sick my Duck"(you do the math there), "Queer of the year", and "Liberty Sucks". All punk hyjinx aside, the band was finally meshing and almost getting a local buzz, at least in the local town scene and a little in the high school. By now, Adam had put all of the old material (22 songs in all) onto a CD, and had distributed mp3's on napster. The full length CD, "Liar", has never been sold or mass produced, although the occasional tape is made for any person who wants one. It has all of the songs before the current MENACE lineup, including "I'm from the country" which was written and performed by Adam and Matt Clarke, and "Folk Singer/Deathrock" which was written by Matt Clarke and Adam. Sometime in the near future there could be some posts of the other humorous songs and skits done by Matt and Adam, maybe even the infamous song "STD's" which was included in the original "Liar" tapes.

Currently, the band is attempting to play with replacements, while Adam is pursueing a college degree. Expect for the original MENACE to be back in action in the summer of 2001 with a full length recording coming out soon. Expect for the new songs to have a punk/metal feel and possibly a new vocalist. Check out the new, unreleased song "Dreamscaping" on this website.