the following are all true facts, in no particular order and generally without context. enjoi!

ryan o'brien, cross exam drummist, was once ranked #16 in the world at the pokemon card game. to hear him tell it he would have been ranked higher but he was hustling the circuit, throwing games intentionally in exchange for other players' cards and cash.

cross exam's contract with organized crime includes a "keeping it real" clause, barring the company from "any and all forms of 'player-hating', up to and including any manner of 'game crushing'." we snuck it in there by editing and re-printing the contract sent to us without telling anyone. what's extra funny is that clint (organized crime records corporate ceo presidential chief of staff) did not even notice, on account of the fact that leon signed his name in his own blood, after which clint did not want to touch the thing long enough to read it.

daniel and leon met each other in cub scouts. ray and ryan met in high school. daniel and leon met ray and ryan 10 years ago. all four of us met justin a couple years after that. we are all lifelong friends and this band will probably never have a lineup change (that is to say, if any of us were ever not able to do the band anymore for whatever reason, that would probably be the end of it).

daniel usually records vocals naked. for "the hung jury", there was also a world war 2 era flight helmet involved, and a shitload of high kicks.

cross exam has never asked for a guarantee, as to do so would not be punk rock. if we were to, however, it would be as follows: one tank of gas (our van has a 32 gallon tank), one case of beer, one bag of weed, and least importantly some amount of food. if you are ever looking to entice us to your town, offering us this would boost your chances of us not being too lazy to do so, but it isnt a requirement.

cross exam is and always has been fiercely anti-professional. i say "anti" as opposed to "un" because "un" does not adequately reflect our complete and utter disdain for professionalism. we play in this band strictly for the good times and with no expectations or desire to ever make any money whatsoever. in keeping, we're late for everything always and usually without equipment. also we often forget to even bring in merch and when we do we often give stuff away. if anything this band hemorrhages money in every direction.

the following are the sketches i sent to dan zettwoch, artist for "the hung jury", when explaining to him what i had in mind for the artwork. i drew them hurriedly in ms paint, but rest assured that i have no artistic ability whatsoever and it would have looked just as ridiculous if i had time and art supplies. the fact that dan whipped up something so awesome from so little just serves as a testament to his skillz though:



there are 2 versions of the song "the foodening". one is "3.99" and one is "3.49". the reason for this is when we recorded the demo it was all about cici's pizza buffet, a three dollar and 99 cent pizza gorging of epic proportions. but THEN they built a pizza street out here, which turns out has better pizza, dance dance revolution for ryan's nerdy ass, and it was 50 cents less! so we switched allegiances and changed the song. then pizza street upped their price to 3.99 and it fucked our worlds up.

our obvious influences are obvious (obviously). some of our less obvious influences are as follows:

pennywise (10 years ago, ryan and leon each learned their respective instruments playing pennywise songs, independently of one another)
spazz (sampling / short songs / weird song structures)
beastie boys (overall hype-ness)
guttermouth (stupid, immature lyrics)
asshole parade (the ridiculously high-pitched way that daniel sings)

thanks to an epic miscommunication, the art for menace ii sobriety originally included graphic, graphic depictions of demons having all manner of gay sex with one another. that sounds like all the makings of a punchline, i know, but its simply a fact.

enjoy that knowledge i just dropped all over your ass, and get ready for our fifth year birthday show on august 28th! worrrrrrrrrrrrddddddddd