For Immediate Release 9/09/09 ....
Bakersfield, California....
Formed in 2000 in Bakersfield - Marky Chavez, David Deroo, Tim Fluckey,
Mike Ransom, and Kris Kohls,
collectively known as ADEMA, signed
to ARISTA Records, and within a year released their Self-Titled debut which
produced the hit singles “Giving In” and “The Way You Like It’’, eventually
being certified GOLD in the US and selling over a million copies worldwide.
By the end of 2003, the band had
released the EP Insomniac’s Dream (with
the track “Immortal” being used as the theme for MORTAL KOMBAT:DEADLY ALLIANCE)
and Unstable, with their collective album
sales topping 1.5 million.
Along the way Adema also managed to play
for hundreds of thousands of fans on the main stages of Ozzfest, Music as a Weapon, Sno-Core, and the inaugural outing of PROJEKT REVOLUTION (with Linkin
Park and Cypress Hill), appeared
on major late night TV fare including Jimmy
Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show, Last
Call with Carson Daly, and Craig
Kilborn, and became a staple of MTV and Rock Radio.....
Of course it wasn’t that easy. In fact, the seeds of our
story were planted over a decade earlier in the oil fields and honky-tonks of Bakersfield,
where bassist David Deroo, guitarist Ryan
Schuck (Orgy/Julien K) and a then unknown singer named Jonathan Davis played together in a band called Sex Art. ....
Meanhile, drummer Kris Kohls pounded
away in local favorites Cradle of Thorns,
with Ty Elam (who shared part time vocal duties in Sex Art) who would
eventually change their name to VIDEODRONE,
and sign to Elementree Records, the Warner imprint of the band who had the
foresight to steal SEX ART’s singer. So Deroo found Tim Fluckey and started another incarnation of Sex Art (eventually
changing their name to Juice) and wallowed in semi-obscurity until 2000.....
Then the story took another
unsuspecting twist when Davis’s younger half-brother Mark Chavez and guitarist Mike Ransom, who had been playing in an early incarnation, joined forces with
Deroo, Fluckey, and Kohls to record demos for an unnamed band that would, only weeks later,
create a ridiculous major label bidding war (remember those?), and eventually become
the teen sensation known as ADEMA.....
Meanwhile, back in 2004, Chavez and Ransom unceremoniously parted
ways with Adema, citing musical differences,
drugs, girlfriends, etc., with the band hiring replacements and soldiering on,
releasing 2005’s Planets (Earache)
and 2007’s Kill The Headlights
(Immortal).....
Eventually wounds healed and the 5 original
members of Adema buried the hatchet and became cordial, then friendly, even
briefly flirting with the idea of reuniting with Chavez before the release of Kill The Headlights. Well, that wasn’t
in the cards, but apparently 2 years later, we’ve been dealt a different hand.....
Yes, after years of heated YOUTUBE
debate (where Adema’s 5 “official” ARISTA-era videos have over 3 million views
since 2007) about whether or not Adema sucked/ruled with or without Marky,
whether or not “Giving In” was Linkin
Park, and what exactly “nu-metal” is, in 2009, 5 friends from Bakersfield decided
to get together and make music again. ....
.. ..
Haters, start your engines.