One Hand Clapping RecordsChad Fontleroy
A four-piece out of Fontana, California, whose most important member never existed: Chad was the name on a fake Nevada licence the bassist bought at sixteen to get an underage pop-punk band into rooms that wouldn't have them. None of them was old enough to be there — so they invented somebody who was, then spent ten years becoming him.
2001 California pop-punk and ska — snotty tenor in the Jerry-Finn pocket, gang vocals built for the all-ages line, and a trumpet rationed in like a controlled substance.
The Set
Thirteen bands taught them the room. One fake ID got them in.
The Four Who Actually Showed Up
Davey is the mouth; Sam the archivist nobody elected; Theo plays the upright doghouse (and owned the ID); Gus is the engine with the day job, and the rationed trumpet.
Davey Sarabia
the mouth; says it before he means to and means it anyway
Sam Tran
the archivist nobody elected; keeps the thirteen bands that taught them the room
Theo Aguilar
the one whose ID it was; the doghouse holds the all-ages line
Gus Mariani
the engine with the day job; never misses, never says much
On the Origin of Chad
Here is the first thing you need to know, and it is also the only thing, in the sense that everything else is a footnote to it: there is no Chad Fontleroy, and there never was, and he is the most important member of the band. Chad was the name on a laminated card — a Nevada driver's licence that had never once been to Nevada, commissioned by Theo Aguilar, the bassist, at sixteen, for the express and entirely successful purpose of getting a four-piece pop-punk band into rooms that wouldn't have them.
None of them was old enough to be there. So they invented somebody who was — and then spent ten years becoming the band he started. The genre is the room; the band just walked in.
The Extras
The small stubborn objects and the lyric books — some free, some sold out, some lost. Scarcity is part of the record.
The Fake ID
A Nevada driver's licence that has never been to Nevada. It got a band that didn't exist into rooms that didn't want them. It is, by a wide margin, the most load-bearing object in the catalogue. Do not ask to see the photo.
The Laws of the Door
The canon rules — what gets you in, what gets you thrown out, the thirteen bands that taught them the room. Photocopied, stapled, handed out at the merch table. All gone.
Pull a Thread
Every band on the label is one room of the same house. A few doors out of this one:
Not in the rooms with bouncers yet. Get in here.