About Five Iron Frenzy
Five Iron Frenzy is an American band which formed in Denver, Colorado, in 1995. Best known for playing ska punk music characterized by an offbeat sense of humor and prominent Christian themes, Five Iron Frenzy was one of the pioneering figures of the Christian ska movement which emerged with ska's mainstream revival in the 1990s. Since 2000, the band's music has shifted away from straight ska to include and embrace stronger alternative rock and pop punk influences, though it continues to create ska music and feature Christian lyrical themes despite several members' changes in religious beliefs.
Five Iron Frenzy experienced their greatest commercial success during the late 1990s as part of the American ska revival, touring prolifically within both Christian and secular markets, where the band gained a cult following for their energetic live shows typified by humorous stage antics which often drew attention to various social causes and charities. By the early 2000s, Five Iron Frenzy had independently sold a total of almost one million albums, though a number of factors eventually contributed to their break-up in 2003. After an eight-year hiatus, the band reunited in 2011 to resume intermittent touring, launching a coincident Kickstarter campaign to finance a new album which raised a then record-breaking $207,980. The resultant album, Engine of a Million Plots, was released in November 2013.
Five Iron Frenzy is often noted for the broad tonal range of their lyricism, covering subject matter both spiritual and secular in manners both serious and satirical. Many of the band's songs are firmly rooted in Social Gospel convictions, often exploring themes of Christian hypocrisy and fundamentalism, manifest destiny and the injustices done to Native Americans, and faith-based criticisms of capitalism, consumerism, nationalism, xenophobia, racism, homophobia and even the Christian music industry, as well as more traditional and uplifting songs of praise and worship. The band is also known for their comic songs which rely on droll self-deprecating and self-referential humor, absurdist non-sequiturs and frequent references to pop culture and geek culture.
The origins of Five Iron Frenzy were with the band Exhumator, a Denver-based Christian industrial thrash metal project which featured future Five Iron Frenzy vocalist Reese Roper, guitarists Micah Ortega and Scott Kerr, bassist Keith Hoerig and drummer Andrew Verdecchio. As punk rock and ska had begun making a popular resurgence in alternative music in the early 1990s, the members of Exhumator soon began shifting their attention away from metal, and, largely influenced by bands such as Skankin' Pickle and NOFX, formed Five Iron Frenzy as a ska/pop punk side project in early 1995. The name "Five Iron Frenzy" was a band in-joke, conceived during an occasion when the members' "paranoid" roommate brandished a golf club in self-defense out of an unfounded fear of being mugged.
Five Iron Frenzy's first show, hosted at a church coffeehouse in April 1995, was as an opening act for Exhumator. According to Reese Roper's recollection of the event, the audience responded to Five Iron Frenzy's music better than they had ever responded to Exhumator's, and realizing that everyone had more fun playing ska punk than metal, made the decision to dissolve Exhumator in favor of Five Iron Frenzy that very night. Over their next few shows, the band gradually recruited a horn section consisting of trumpeter Nathaniel "Brad" Dunham, trombonist Dennis Culp and Micah Ortega's cousin, saxophonist Leanor Ortega.
Almost instantly, Five Iron Frenzy became a prominent presence in the Denver music scene. The band opened for Tooth & Nail Records artists MxPx for their third show and played over sixty shows during their first eight months, soon becoming a staple of every major ska show in the Denver area, opening for such nationally successful touring bands as The Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Less Than Jake. Although Five Iron Frenzy's initial intent was to stay local and help develop their own scene, in June 1995, the band traveled to the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois, to play an impromptu set before several prominent Christian alternative bands and record labels, including Ghoti Hook, Crashdog and Alex Parker of Flying Tart Records. The band has since partially attributed their early success to this stunt, as they would return to Cornerstone the following year sponsored by a record label.
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