1997-2000
Bio thanks to Anthony Pappalardo
"In My Eyes started about five minutes after I was kicked out of TYF. I walked from 38 Calumet st to my new place with Pete at 103 Calumet and during the 5 minute walk had already decided that I wanted to do a band with Pete as the singer. Damian and I were heading out to San Francisco for our winter semester break and by the time I came back IME had a full line up. Luke and Neal from Tenfold and Fastbreak were going to play drums and guitar respectively and Damian was cool enough to switch from Guitar (his natural instrument) to Bass. Everyone was that psyched and in Jan 1997 we took all our crap into the basement of 103 Calumet and started writing songs. I think Pete quit the first practice and we later got kicked out of our basement practice space for being too much of a bum out to the neighbors and so our Chinese landlord could raise puppies in said basement...not joking.
By March 1997 we had shows and a 5 song demo. We didn't actually settle on the name IME until 5 minutes prior to hitting the stage at our first show @ the New Milford Teen Center. Craig Mack booked the show and just put "a new band featuring..." on the flyer and we worried about the name for weeks and for the entire car ride. We had no problems coming up with the worst joke names like N.W.E. or The Good Guys but a real name was a total mental block. I always thought the lyrics to IN MY EYES were the best Straight Edge lyrics ever written based on the fact that they weren't typical "you drink YOU STINK" type shit, it was a song that was really powerful and specific and seemed like a good reference point. One thing that really fueled IME early on was that we all wanted to be a straight forward straight edge hardcore band but we wanted to push the structure without being too over the top. Damian was always hashing out flyers that referenced different aesthetics, we tried to have different types of visuals whether it was having Pushead create a record cover with the guidelines of "no skulls" or Xing up the D.R.I. dude for a one off shirt for a laugh, we tried to have fun to balance out how serious we were about things. "
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Sweet Pete (Vocals) Neal St. Clair (Guitar), Anthony Pappalardo (Guitar), Jeff Neumann (Guitar) Damian Genuardi (Bass), and Luke Garro (Drums)
