976-DAVE is...

Dave - Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards

Erdman - Bass, Guitar, Vocals

Danny - Drums, Vocals

Robman - Inspiration & Moral Support

Mike - Guitar, Vocals

The first time I remember telling someone I was in a band was in 8th grade. Brian Abernethy and I started RITALIN. We covered Better Than Ezra and Greenday a lot with absolutely no originals. That band dissolved and my friend Russell started taking guitar lessons. I still didn't really know how to play correctly either. I tuned my guitar to an open C# and played with my thumb as a bar chord. Soon, Russell taught me a few chords and we vowed to form a band called HPS. We wrote our first original songs "Driving in Tim's Car" and "Russell Sucks". He wasn't too thrilled about recording and never had any free time. Some older friends of mine were in a band called THUMB at the time. Venu and Ramsey, the guitarists, convinced me to record some of our originals on a little black tape recorder, a 1-track, if you will. I released that album in February of my freshman year of high school. That was '95. That was the first time 976-DAVE came into existence. Ramsey loved it, or he said he did. Those guys graduated and left me in a virtually band-less school. Miss June was there, but they didn't really talk to me that much and rarely played out.

Some more of my friends, none of which played any instruments, wanted to be in a band too. So we started RBG (Raping Billy Goats). We were "practicing" one day when Aldo busted in the room and said "what the hell are you guys doing in here? it sounds like you're raping billy goats." Chris Babb replied, "we are. we are raping billy goats." The name stuck. RBG now has over 17 members, I'm still the only one that plays anything, and has released four or five albums.

I got my name from Timmy B. It was the day before my debut show, Josh Solomon's post homecoming game party. I was supposed to be opening for two more bands, THUMB and the TIMMY B band. There was apparently a rule amongst these heavyweights. When you start a band, its name is The (you're name here) Band, until you get better. Well, I hated being called The Dave Laubach Band and begged for Venu to let me change it. He was my second guitarist, so I couldn't really argue with him. He was also headlining that night. He gave me two choices, come up with something spectacular in twenty minutes or I could be "Dave' Maria." I chose to think about it over a game of basketball with Tim. He played varsity and was a good half foot taller than me, but for some reason I was winning. He started joking he should call 976-DAVE to get help, blah blah blah. Venu overheard him and gave me the okay for the name. The catholic school I went to let it slide, but another girl's school objected to it, told my school to punish me for being obscene. The school threatened expulsion if I didn't change it, so I tried. However, when I told people about the scandal, the name stuck. We made t-shirts and stickers and sweatshirts and now there's no turning back.

Back to the history. Russell left the band when we moved to college because he hated the music. Erdman wrote some good songs and I needed a replacement for Russell, so he's in the band for sure now. I met Mike in college and he loved the Impossibles almost as much as I do, so he was in. I kinda told Danny he would be in the band, he was the only drummer I knew and pretty good. He recorded the CD with me. Russell laid down a track and so did Ramsey as a favor. I moved to New York and Ramsey was already living here. His band Local 63 broke up the summer before. I loved those guys. And he wanted to play some more, so we added him to the roster as well. I looked up to him for four years when he was in Local 63, so its kind of a privilege to have him in my band now. Ten albums later, we're on the verge of another CD and rockstardom.

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