ARMY OF FRESHMEN
Rock // Pop-Punk // Pop
Ventura, California, USA

Biography
Army of Freshmen is the brainchild of singer Chris Jay. After graduating high school in 1997, the New Jersey native made a pilgrimage to the Land of Dreams, Southern California, with the goal of enlisting musicians to help bring some of the 500 songs he'd written in his adolescence to life. He found them, oddly enough, in the sleepy beach town of Ventura, California: guitarist Aaron Goldberg; bassist Kai Dodson; drummer Mike Milligan; and keyboardists Owen Busey and Dan Clark. Together, the band quickly earned a strong local following on the basis of their tremendous live performances. Not content with just being hometown heroes, AOF hit the highway almost immediately, crisscrossing the country on a series of self-booked tours that have so far taken them to 40 states and earned them more than 25,000 names on their mailing list. Along the way, they shared stages with the likes of AFI, Fall Out Boy, Good Charlotte, Sum 41 and fellow Ventura County residents Yellowcard. Having generated some buzz on the road, in 2001 the band entered the studio to record their eponymous debut. Again, circumstances forced them to do things themselves: After the small label they had signed to went under, AOF took the completed album and sold it exclusively at their shows. They managed to sell over 10,000 Cds, an unbelievable accomplishment for a group with no infrastructure behind them. In 2003, one copy somehow landed in the hands of an executive at Sonic Label, a Japanese imprint through JVC, who agreed to release the record overseas. Once it hit the airwaves, the disc exploded, and soon the Freshmen were selling out clubs across Japan and playing alongside Radiohead, the Strokes and Blondie at Summersonic, the country's biggest summer music festival.

Members
» Chris Jay > Vocals
» Aaron Goldberg > Guitar / Vocals
» Owen Bucey > Keyboards / Vocals
» Dan Clark > Keyboard / Mini Moog
» Kai Dodson > Bass
» Mike Milligan > Drums