It started with Skin Deep. Tom and Aaron were playing pseudo-Christian alternative rock songs with Kyle and Jamie. Matthew would come by occasionally to play Weezer covers with Tom. Matthew eventually replaced Jamie and Jon was brought in to be "the fuck-around", responsible for making weird noises with effect pedals. On Tom’s birthday, 1995?, we recorded a 9 song demo using Tom’s church’s equipment. We set up on the altar and Jon wasn’t able to make it. Kyle was kicked out and Tom gave up his lead guitar/vocals position to Jon and filled the bass position Kyle left behind. This was Bugg Superstar.
Practice space moved from Tom’s church to Matthew’s basement, because that’s where the drums were. The band reworked a few of Tom’s songs, "I Am" and "Escape", and added some of Jon’s old songs to the repertoire: "Long", "My Name", "Faded", and "Darkness of Her Love". New songs were quickly written: "Porno 1" to cash in on the current porn music craze, "Are You 21?" to cash in on the Blur/Oasis British Invasion craze, and "Falling Down" to cash in on Michael Douglas’ popularity.
Jon and Matthew recorded a 3 song demo on four-track for the sole purpose of getting a gig at the Zone Coffee Bar in Dearborn, MI, the mecca of Downriver high-school bands. The demo featured "My Name", "Darkness of Her Love" and "Faded" and it worked. We were booked and later told that our demo was one of the few that wasn’t quickly thrown into the trash.
So for the next year, we played monthly gigs at the Zone to pretty much the same group of dedicated high school friends. From there, we befriended bands such as Sonic Reducer and local music store owner Mike Carey, who put us on a few of his multi-band showcases at Kennedy Hall. A show was also played at a birthday party, inside an apartment complex’s laundry room. It was in this room that the line from "My Name", "Fucking bitch is such a pain," was changed to "Washing clothes is such a pain", because apparently we weren’t allowed to swear at this party. We liked the lyric change so much, it was used from then on.
We decided as a band, along with the help of our soundguy Kevin, it was time for us to get "signed" to a "label", you know, perhaps one of the big ones. We rented an 8 track reel-to-reel and bought a giant vintage soundboard. Due to time constraints and work schedules, Jon and Matthew did most of the recording over a weekend. Six songs were recorded: "Long", "Falling Down", "Porno 1", "Are You 21?", "My Name", and "Darkness of Her Love." These are the best recordings of Bugg Superstar and it is unfortunate that some of their best work, "Mushroom Kingdom" and "Valentine," were not recorded with this hi-fi set-up. Needless to say, the EP never made its way to any label, big or independent, let alone got us signed. "Long" was supposed to be our first single.
It was around this same time it was decided to ask Tom to leave the band. Jeremy was brought in to replace him, giving Bugg an entirely new sensibility. Maybe. This was the era of Bugg Superstar when songs like "Truck Drivin’ Fool" were written and "Cheap Sunglasses" replaced covers of 311 songs at shows.
Jon’s desire to add more synthesizer to Bugg’s sound was one of the reasons the band started pulled apart. Eventually Aaron and Jeremy announced they were leaving the band, soon forming the Nevada Spacemen. Of course Jon and Matthew took this personally. They started playing keyboard and drums songs, mostly free jazz instrumentals, before giving up completely on continuing Bugg Superstar.
Matthew eventually joined the Nevada Spacemen, playing keyboards, with Aaron and Jeremy, as well as our friend Corey and Aaron’s brother Josh. This eventually became the band Tune. After Jeremy and Corey walked away from Tune, the three remaining members, two of them half of Bugg Superstar, approached Jon about doing a reunion. It was intended to be the same original set-up, but it quickly morphed into Jon and Matthew ..boards, Josh on drums, and Aaron on guitar, playing weird, piano-y cover versions of Bugg songs. It was soon obvious that this was a failed experiment and rehearsals ended. The three core members of Bugg Superstar, Jon, Aaron, and Matthew, have yet to play together again.