xTHERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTHx: strongarm

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

strongarm

Strongarm came from South Florida. The band was the result of several local bands who had similar tastes in music and who were all Christians. Jason Berggren started Ikthus which included Chris Carbonell and Chad Neptune. Eventually Josh Colbert and Nick Dominguez joined forces with them when their band Endure broke up, which then became Strongarm (Endure had a song called “Together” which was covered by Strongarm and put as a hidden track on the Advent Of A Miracle CD). This was the original line up:

Nick Dominguez - Guitar
Joshua Colbert - Guitar
Chris Carbonell - Drums
Chad Neptune - Bass
Jason Berggren - Vocals

Strongarm started in 1993 and under this line-up recorded two demos: first there was a 3 track nameless demo recorded at this guy Tony Bartoli’s house. It featured “Forgiven”, “Stand Together” (both re-recorded for Atonement) and the otherwise unreleased song “Unfold”. Shortly thereafter they recorded their second demo in a local studio with better production: a 4 track demo called “These Times That Try Men’s Souls” (featuring the songs “Count The Cost”, “Trials”, “Remaining” and “Strenghtened In Faith”. While recording this demo, Tooth & Nail Records contacted Strongarm expressing interest in them (how they heard of them is still a mystery today). Strongarm sent over their whole demo, and Strongarm’s song “Count the Cost” appeared on Tooth & Nail’s first compilation album entitled “Helpless Amongst Friends” (P.O.D. also appears on that). This demo, and Strongarm’s performance at Cornerstone Festival that year, caught the attention of Tooth & Nail Records president Brandon Ebel who signed them. The original line-up remained the same for the release of their debut album “Atonement” in early 1995. Shortly after the release of this album there were personal differences in the band, and Nick (who went on to form Tension) and Chris were asked to leave the band by Jason. They were replaced by Bob Franquiz on guitar (formerly of the South Florida band Amboogalard which also included a member who went on to join Marilyn Manson) and Steve Kleisath on drums (formerly of the Tampa band Pull). He also played in a band called Shai Hulud at the time; a band that had pretty much a similar sound. One of the reasons for this fact might have been that Joshua had played with Shai Hulud’s guitar player Matt Fox around 1991 in a band called Planet X. They discovered that hardcore didn’t necessarily have to mean powerchords… they experimented with other kind of chord arrangements and melody that led to the sound that distinguished both Strongarm and Shai Hulud from the hardcore scene at the time.
You can look at a copy in cache of how their artist page at Tooth & Nail looked like at that time by clicking here.

Bob Franquiz - Guitar
Joshua Colbert - Guitar
Steve Kleisath - Drums
Chad Neptune - Bass
Jason Berggren - Vocals

Under this line-up Strongarm composed 5 of the 9 songs that appear on their 2nd album (“Advent of a Miracle”, “These Times That Try Men’s Souls”, “Increase”, “Supplication”, and “Measure of Consequence”).They also did a video for Tooth & Nail, a rare 7-inch record entitled “Trials” which includes an early version of the song ‘Increase’ (with an awesome sample of Darth Vader), and a summer tour. Eventually personal differences came to a head again, and Jason and Bob decided to leave Strongarm to pursue other interests. Although only 5 songs had been written for their next album, the remaining members decided to regroup and press on. Nick rejoined the band on guitar and they were looking for a while for a good singer; but finally they decided that drummer Chris would rejoin as well, and do the vocals. Strongarm continued on and finished work on their album “The Advent Of A Miracle” which was released in 1997. The line-up for this album was:

Nick Dominguez - Guitar
Joshua Colbert - Guitar
Steve Kleisath - Drums
Chad Neptune - Bass
Chris Carbonell - Vocals

They did several tours and finally announced their break-up in 1998 at their final show at Cornerstone Festival. This is what Steve Kleisath said about it in an interview:

As far as the reason Strongarm broke up people always wonder. It wasn’t any one thing; the commitment level needed wasn’t there anymore. Two of the guys were married, Chris and Josh, and they weren’t available to tour. And just to write a whole new album for us takes a long time. We had a few ideas, actually had a few new songs, which will probably never be released. The time that it would take to do it and then know we wouldn’t be able to tour off it just wasn’t worth it. We were supposed to go to Europe, and that fell through, which really took the wind out of our sails, we had planned it the summer before, and we were planning our whole lives around being gone for a month and that fell through at the last minute, like on our way to the airport. The promoter who set us up and also set us up with Zao and Living Sacrifice who were gonna meet us out there, he never sold the tickets, and that really let the wind out of our sails. That wasn’t why we broke up, but at that point we sorta got the feeling “alright we’ve been around a while, I think we are in the twilight of the band.”

But after a while Nick, Steve, Josh and Chad apparently couldn’t live without being in a band so they decided to form a new band called Further Seems Forever.Click here to see how they announced it on the Strongarm homepage at the time. They found a vocalist called Chris Carraba to fill up Chris Carbonell’s place. The musical direction had switched from hardcore to emo, and also the missionary aspect that Strongarm clearly had was no longer there.

In 2000, Strongarm made a reunion appearance at Furnace Fest. It was the same line-up as it was when they broke up. On the song “Trials”, they had their buddy Matt Fox on drums.

strongarm - 1994 - division 7'' (tooth & nail records)