about band
about band
ignition is a punk/alternative band found around the san jose, california area. they do live shows around the san jose area, often. ignition consists of 4 members, ken (vocals, guitar, bass), amir (vocals, bass, guitar), bobby (drums), and adam (lead guitar).
Backtrack to January 1999.
Ken Ota has joined his Bahai church and has let them know that he has some musical abililty's. He was asked to compose some music for the church. One day, he makes in apointment at Amir's studio (the very same that would be home to the Ignition Demo CD). Rare and not really well done versions of "Color Me Human" and "No War" were recorded on that day. A drum machine kept the beat and supplied the "backbone".
Fast foward a couple months, and Ken realizes that he wants to be in a band. He asks high school Jazz Band mate Bobby Wilmore to join the soon to be 3 piece team of Ignition. Then, with Bobby allready on the Ignition train (bad wording, I know), Ken asks Amir Khostavan to join in as Bassist for the combo. Amir at first doesn't like the idea of being in a band because he knows that his musical ego will get the best of him and will make him be very demanding in the product of Ignition. But after a few days of non-stop tormenting by Ken, Amir joined as the 3rd member of Ignition.
Practices were held. Practice after practice after practice. Bobby's garage was home to the 3 members 2-3 days a week for 3 hours a day. Songs like "No War", "Color Me Human", "Kid", "High School Reunion", and Aaliyahs "Are you that somebody" were blasted out of the amplifiers, and soon made the band sick of the material before presenting it to anyone.
Bring in late April. The bands high school is holding a "Talent Show" and Amir has an idea for a medley. The thought was that peopel who attend a show and watch a band they've never seen before, don't want to hear songs that they've never heard before. Therefore, Amir brought the idea of playing Orgy's "Blue Monday", KoRn's "Freak on a leash", Cher's "Believe", Blur's "Song 2", Michael Jackson's "Black or White", and Aaliyah's "Are you that somebody" onto one 10 minute show. The crowd was amazed to say the least... singing along to everysong.
May 25th... Ignition's first REAL show... presented in front of a crowd of around 30 at the Cactus Club in Downtown San Jose (www.cactusclubsj.com). The set was 30 min. long... the crowd was their friends.. and they sped up on every song, non-the-less.. it was a cool show.
From that day forward, there was no other way then up. Ignition shared the stage with such like Triple Seven (now signed to Smash Mouth's manager), Gish, Stitch, True To Form, Monkey, Monster Pete and The Cheifs, Firme, Freakbomb, Idle Hands, and more.
Fast track one year.. January 2000. Ignition returns to the site where they make their mark.. their High School's Auditorium where they presneted their 10 minute long medley. A six band show was presented in front of a crowd of around 150 people, and once again Ignition made their mark as one of the entertaining bands there, as the crowd demanded more when Ignitions set was through. More is what they got.
That night, Adam Jackson was asked to join as the 4th and final member of Ignition. With him, the one weakness of Ignition, the solo section, has now been fixed, and with this, Ignition is ready to take the stage for years to come.
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