DRAWING ON EVE HISTORY v1.2

In the beginning, James Kruth and Ryan Smith were friends. They met in Boy Scouts and listened to a lot of music together. James was 12 and Ryan was 13. In the old days, Ryan was generally into Dr. Dre, while James was into Guns n' Roses. One day, Ryan brought James a Nirvana tape. It was In Utero. It had just came out and it blew both of them away. They started talking about starting their own band.

For Christmas 1994, James got a black acoustic guitar. A few months later, Ryan bought an electric guitar and a little Crate amp after saving every penny for months. Soon afterwards, James got an electric guitar for free from some guy who was going to throw it away. It was a real piece of junk. They wrote their first song at James's house at two in the morning even before Ryan had bought his guitar. It was called "Bending Both Sides of the Sunset", consisting of Ryan's poetry and James's chord work. Later on that summer, they got together with a friend of Ryan's who played bass named Nick Witte. They spent the rest of the summer playing Nirvana songs, other assorted covers, and experimenting with some originals. They played one gig, a Boy Scout Halloween Party, without a drummer under the name "The Dyslexic Cheerleaders" and promptly stopped practicing after the gig went badly. We were asked to stop so a Guns and Roses tape could be played.

James got together with Ryan again in early 1995. They wrote two or three more songs and put out a "boom box" demo under the name Pat's Urinal Company. The demo consisted of them both on guitar and contained the songs "Bending Both Sides of the Sunset", "Cowadain", "Coloring the Sky", and "Nothing Remains the Same". James still has a Urinal Key Chain that Ryan made when the Band was playing under that name.

They played one of the songs featured on the demo (Cowadain) for a talent show with friends Chris Nowicki on drums and Paul Baribeau on bass. Chris and Paul were in a band called The Implants at the time that also included a guitarist named Mike Lovato. James and Ryan had practiced with their band once beforehand. The show went off okay except for the fact that James broke a string. They didn't win the talent show.

James and Ryan practiced again during the summer, but not much happened. School started and they were both busy so it looked like the end for the two... but wait!! In the spring of 1996 the two got together again and started writing quite a bit. They asked their friends Rachel Klomp to play bass and Judy Gillett to play drums, and the four of them became "Glyss". This was a term for a fictional drug out of one of James' stories (James used to write a lot of literature, he still writes poetry). Somewhere during this time James picked up a thirty-dollar blue sparkle drum set from a friend. Judy played on this set the whole time she was a member of "Glyss". They practiced a lot and played two or three gigs. One of the most memorable gigs was Steve Crawford's open house. This was the first gig where James and Ryan's songs were received well. Among the songs written during this period were "Ice Cream Stand Girlfriend", "Goodbye Leonard", and "Lisp a Little".

Later in the summer, practices started to fall apart and James and Ryan were not happy again. They decided to continue practicing but most practices did not include the whole band. Feeling lost the two of them started to jam with a lot of different people that fall. Among them was Dave Sheaffer. Dave was a very talented bassist who was then in the band "Stonegate". They also jammed with Josh Jones, the rhythm guitarist and harmonica player for the band Grin. Grin was a classic rock outfit that Ryan's good friends Fritz Horstman and Nick Witte played in. James and Ryan also started jamming with two people from a local band; an excellent guitarist named Matt Tenniswood, and his friend Mike Smith who played bass. Eventually their drummer Erik Carlson was included in the jams, and a new band was formed. James and Ryan felt that they had finally found the right musicians to make music with.

The new three-guitar band was also called Glyss. This was mostly because thinking up a new name would have been a pain in the ass. At first, things went very well. The new band wrote many songs including "Golden" by James and Ryan, "Anyday" by James and "Somber" by Matt. They played their first gig at The Driver on Inn, a local bar, and were received very well. They continued to play many gigs and write new songs including the very heavy "Bow to the Children", by Matt. There was also another song written titled "Park Bench Love". The original author of this song is still under dispute.

How does the band currently feel about this song? James and Ryan absolutely remember laying down the rhythm and lead parts for the song during an afternoon they were practicing together. Ryan remembers writing the lyrics shortly afterwards. The other members claim that James and Ryan were not even present when they remember writing the song. Never the less, the other members (Matt and Mike in particular) claim to have written the entire song (excluding the lyrics). This has caused a lot of conflict between Ryan and James, and Matt and Mike.

At this time, the band was constantly gigging. They played shows at least once a week. Although this started out being great, it soon began to wear on all the members, as did the constant pressure to debut new material every week to keep people coming back. Soon the band was at odds, with Matt and Mike in one corner, and James and Ryan in the other while Erik swaying in between. It went on like this for weeks before Matt and Mike pulled out, taking Erik with them. The band officially broke up because of creative differences.

Incidentally, Matt, Mike and Erik asked James at one point to stay with them and to continue playing gigs. This decision was a very tough one for James to make. He had to choose between continuing to play gigs with a well established band of people he didn't especially like or sinking back into relative obscurity while continuing to make music with one of his best friends, Ryan. James decided to stick with Ryan, and as soon as he told Matt, Mike and Erik, they withdrew their offer.

It was early 1997 and James and Ryan were on their own again without a drummer or a bassist and didn't have much to do. James started practicing a lot with his brother and constantly writing songs. James' brother, Adam, had actually sat in for Erik many times when the old band had practiced and thus had a good bit of experience playing with James and Ryan. However, Ryan was having trouble with a relationship and this kept him occupied for the majority of the time.

Soon Ryan and James got together again and officially decided to start a new band with Adam on drums. Thus began the search for a bassist. They tried out two or three bassists but none of them seemed to fit in with Ryan and James' style. Just as they were about to give up the search they found Luttrell. He fit right in with the band (and he had a wonderful place that the band could practice at, the fabled Loft, where they still practice to this day), which now consisted of James, Ryan, Adam, and Luttrell. They started writing songs at once and prepared for their first gig.

The band, still going by the name of Glyss, played it's first gig at the high school most of them attended. They played mostly original songs, including "Golden" and "Park Bench Love". At the end of the performance Mike Smith and Erik Carlson, who were in the audience, stood up and started yelling. They said that they had written "Park Bench Love" and demanded credit. Later on, after the show, there was a confrontation where Mike threatened bodily harm to all the members of the band if the band was to ever play the song again. It also came out that Mike, Matt, and Erik had supposedly copyrighted the song, under their new band name, "The Vermicious Knids". This made James and Ryan seriously mad. Never the less, as opposed to fighting the Knids every step of the way on playing that one song, they decided it wasn't worth it and let the assholes have their way.

The band soon decided that a name change was in order for the next gig, before the Knids decided to copyright that as well. One day, while the band was hanging out at James and Adam's house, with band friend and photographer Jim Hull, they came up with the name "Drawing on Eve". The four decided they liked it and the new band was born. This simple act gave them a real identity, all their own. Things had never felt better. The band played a lot of gigs, some great, some not so great. They also wrote a lot of songs. In early 1998 they decided a recording was in order.

In order to record, the band needed money. That was when the now infamous "drugs have taught a whole generation of Americans the metric system" T-shirts were born. The band raised enough money to rent some equipment, including a digital 8-track from "His Productions", to record themselves. With the help of Dave Sheaffer they recorded at the Loft, in three 24+-hour marathon sessions. The recording, when it was finished, sounded terrible.

The band, feeling depressed and broke, took their recording to a man by the name of Mitch Wells, a recent acquaintance of James'. Mitch was starting a small recording studio and the band asked him if he could remix the "Loft recordings" to make them sound better. He said he wasn't able to, but he offered to re-record the six songs in his studio for a very good price. In case you're interested, the "Loft recordings" included "Golden", "Dave", "Saturday Night Seduction", "Life", "Anonymous", and "When I Was". The tape also originally included "sns" and "Glyss This", but the songs were removed in an effort to keep it short and sweet.

The band started recording with Mitch in earnest in the fall of 1998. After many months and much anticipation, they finished with the recording in June of 1999. Over the course of the recording, five more songs were written and added to the album. The album had many early names including "Lies and Butterflies" and "Trees?... Upside down please!" but later on the name "The Passionate Intensity of Life" was chosen with much fanfare.

The Passionate Intensity of Life was released in November 1999 and has received great reviews and compliments. The album did not however have a distributor so its sales total has stayed under 500. Continually trying to move forward DOE decided to move on by playing an all original two hour CD release concert on December 2, 1999. The attendence of about 100 friends and family heard the album in it's entirety and four new songs yet to be recorded.

Starting in January of 2000 Mitch Wells began his record label, AFR, and asked DOE to sign. Being in financial trouble and needing distribution DOE was ready to sign with AFR. Over the next couple of months DOE and AFR were negotiating contracts until AFR pulled out of their offer because of financial problems.

Feeling discouraged DOE took a couple of months to regroup and move to a NEW CITY!! Ryan and Luttrell leased a house in East Lansing so the band could have more space and freedom. After about a month of renovation to the practice space DOE was ready to hit the Fall of 2000 at full steam. Practicing the usual 3 night 12 hour per week schedule DOE was getting ready to tighten up and hit the stage and studio.

Unfortunately, gig shortages made DOE's fall more of a warm up to the sessions planned for spring. They played two high profile gigs, headlining the Michigan Brewing Company's Oktoberfest and headlining a room at the Lansing area FestEve. The gigs went well and DOE put on their Sunday best for FestEve, rocking the house until the New Year came (check out the set lists in the Calendar section!). Riding the wave from New Years DOE designed a new press pack and is currently sending them out statewide. Starting in February DOE began writing new songs for the new album. The studio sessions began in the first week of April in the hopes of releasing the new album in June of 2001.

Finé! For now.

[ Back to Band Info ]