The Invalids formed in Santa Rosa, CA sometime around the spring of 1993, spawned from the collective boredom of three high school students with nothing better to do. Having grown up to a soundtrack of Megadeth, Slayer, The Dead Kennedys and The Ramones, and, being currently enthralled with their monthly trips to see a band called Green Day perform live at the nearby Phoenix Theater, these three teenagers decided to start a band of their own. In 1993 there was no Myspace, there were no punk clothing stores in the mall and there were no manufactured teen idols masquerading as punk bands on MTV. In other words, The Invalids were certainly not formed with glory in mind. When they first began playing together, their wildest dream was to some day perform in front of people other than their parents, siblings and next-door neighbors.

The Invalids - Tony on bass guitar, Sean on drums and Scott on guitar and vocals - started off practicing in their parents' respective garages. During these early practices, Sean used a lawn chair and buckets for a drum set and Scott used a lawn mower as microphone stand. With no musical training or inherent talent, they willed themselves into existence simply out of the desire to express the frustrations and concerns of their teenage lives through punk rock. The three kept playing and soon enough had an entire set-list worth of songs. Wanting to sound like Green Day, their limited abilities had them sounding more like The Ramones. However, they soon found inspiration in this regard when Scott's parents bought him a cassette tape of Screeching Weasel's My Brain Hurts for his birthday. The three were amazed to hear that there were others in the world playing this simple yet authentic, snotty yet insightful version of punk rock music, and it motivated them to continue.

Along with a few other bands that began to come out of their high school, The Invalids started to perform at various birthday parties and backyard get-togethers. Eventually, these performances culminated in a phone call from Tom Gaffey, the manager of the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma, CA, asking if The Invalids would like to play there. Their original dream fulfilled, the band embarked on several happy years of playing at the Phoenix and other venues in Sonoma County, punctuated by occasional touring around the United States, including a trip to Hawaii. In the meantime, they even managed to record and release three 7" EPs (on Lookout!, Second Guess and Wedge Records) and a full length CD (on Second Guess), more than they ever could have hoped for during the lawn mower days.

In the end, time moved on, high school graduation came and went, and the Invalids faded away, having been a band based largely on the trials and tribulations of adolescence. In fact, it was their honest and uncompromising embrace of those trials and tribulations that drew people to their music in the first place, despite the band never reaching stability in terms of musical consistency, reliable equipment, dependable transportation, etc. The Invalids' message - an insolent optimism in the face of modern suburbia's relentless and crushing cynicism - resonates as much with the youth of the early 21st century as it did with the youth of the late 20th, which is why the band is happy that, all these years later, Insubordination Records has decided to re-release their full-length CD Out of My Head. -- Scott Morris