IN CONTROL
I started In Control in August 1999. The HC scene in Oxnard was at an all time low, and shows that summer never peaked about 30 or 40 kids. My old band had fizzled back in the Spring and it left a real sour taste in my mouth. I decided to move from vocals to guitar and write every song, so no matter what members came and went, the band would persevere.
I recruited Ryan Fredette (Vocals), Chris Holden (bass), and Tony Melino (drums) to start it with me...basically three retards like myself who had little skill, but much desire to play. We recorded our demo for free with our friends at the Ghost Chamber in Ventura, CA and it came out a week before our first show at Lazerstar in Oxnard, CA.
This was the last Lazerstar show ever, but the beginning of a new era for the Nard. A couple months later I put out our first 7" called "The Nard Curse e.p." on my own label, Camel Clutch. We did our first NorCal weekend with Kill Your Idols and had a blast. We learned a lot from them. The first year was an amazing year for us, and we raised a lot of eyebrows everywhere we went in So Cal, mostly due to the fact that we brought about 25 friends with us to every show. The year culminated with a show at the Living Room in Goleta, CA on December 16th 2000, for a show that was documented on the Intense Energy 7", that I released shortly after.
Ryan and I had saved up enough money, and planned to release our first LP, but Daniel Sant convinced me that I should talk to Dave Mandel first. Much to my surprise, Mandel backed the idea of doing our record, and we spent the money that we had saved up for our first LP on an '89 Dodge Ram Van. We recorded the "Another Year" LP in the summer of 2001 and left for our first full US tour with friends Fields of Fire shortly after. The tour was a true test of character. On the 3 1/2 week tour I think we played two shows to more than 25 kids and slept in the van every night except for about 4. The road breaks a lot of dudes, but Ryan and I were amped to get out there again. It wouldn't happen until June 2002, when we embarked on our 2nd US tour, this time for five weeks.
We wrote and recorded "The Truth Hurts" LP in various spurts surrounding the summer, and it was released in early 2003. We did our next tour in April of 2003 which was our best tour yet but unfortunately Tony left at the end of it. We got Matt Anderson from Retaliate and recorded the S/T 7” in sometime in the summer of 2003. Unfortunately, he was only 16, and was too young to tour so we got Paul Sylvester to do our 4th US tour in September. On paper, it was the best tour we ever did. We got to play the Che Cafe, CBGB’s, the Triple Rock, The Fireside Bowl, and Gilman St all on one tour which is fucking awesome.
We had planned on a European tour and an LP on Reflections records, but Paul quit the band the day before we had to buy airline tickets. Unsure of if we could secure a fill in, I had Reflections call off everything. I guess we had been plagued by member problems from the start, but this was too much and I decided to break up the band. We played five shows in 2004 and broke up. A photo from the last show is on the cover of the Nard Curse LP that was released on 6131 in 2009.
Thanks to everyone who supported us or who our songs still mean something to.
- Zack Nelson