About The Dollyrots
The Dollyrots are an American punk rock band formed in 2000, composed of Kelly Ogden and Luis Cabezas . They have released six studio albums under Panic Button , Joan Jett's Blackheart Records, Little Steven's Wicked Cool Records, and currently under their own label, Arrested Youth Records.
Bassist/lead vocalist Kelly Ogden and guitarist Luis Cabezas have known each other since meeting in the eighth grade in Land o' Lakes, Florida. They both attended New College of Florida where they formed a band called No Chef with friends Josh Harrold and Mike Benbow. Ogden and Cabezas played the guitar while Harrold was the bassist/lead vocalist and Benbow was the drummer. Cabezas described the subject matter of their songs as being "about ninjas, zombies and Charles Manson."
After being disillusioned with the results of the 2000 United States presidential election, Ogden and Cabezas decided to make the band full-time. As Ogden recalls:
We were watching the 2000 presidential election results, and at four o'clock in the morning, when we found out that George W. Bush had won, Luis and I were like, "The world's probably gonna end anyway, and I don't want to go to med school," so we thought, "Let's just do the band," says Ogden. "So that's when it happened. We had no future anyways, so let's just be in a rock band!"
Josh Harrold did not want to become a full-time musician so he left the band. Ogden took over his duties on bass and lead vocals. Mike Benbow left and was replaced by Frank Beasley. The band then changed their name to The Dollyrots. The band left Florida and visited various cities across the U.S., finally settling in Los Angeles in January 2002. Ogden described Los Angeles as having "everything we needed—record labels, venues, other bands. It seemed like the right place." Beasley left the band and was replaced by Josh Valenti.
In 2003 the band self-recorded and released the EP Feed Me, Pet Me. Responding to a blind audition call The Dollyrots were selected to appear in a Hewlett-Packard advertisement featuring the song "Feed Me, Pet Me" which led to signing a publishing deal with Windswept Pacific Music. After meeting producer John Fields at the commercial recording session the band recorded their debut studio album Eat My Heart Out soon thereafter at Capitol Studio B with Fields at the helm. Initially self-released, the album was put into rotation on L.A.'s Indie 103.1 along with spins on Rodney Bingenheimer's show on KROQ. This attracted the attention of labels, and ultimately The Dollyrots signed a deal with Panic Button in July 2004 to widely release Eat My Heart Out. Josh Valenti left in early 2004, replaced by Amy Wood of Get Set Go. Eat My Heart Out was released by Panic Button/Lookout! Records on September 28, 2004.
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