Against Me!

Against Me! is a punk rock band formed in 1997 in Gainesville, Florida. Their first full-length album, released on No Idea Records in 2002, is Reinventing Axl Rose. They have released music on Misanthrope Records, Crasshole Records, Plan It X Records, Sabot Productions, No Idea Records, and Fat Wreck Chords. In December 2005, they signed with Sire Records, and released their major label debut, New Wave, on July 10, 2007.

Biography

Early years (1997?2002)

Tom Gabel (born November 8, 1980), started the band at age 17 as a solo act with vocals and acoustic guitar. He would only occasionally perform with backup from drummers or bassists. Gabel put out one demo tape by himself, officially entitled Against Me!, but more commonly known as Tom's First Demo. While copies of the cassette itself are extremely rare, Internet file-sharing programs have helped circulate the songs among fans.

Another demo cassette was released the following year on Misanthrope Records, with a slightly more complete band, titled Vivida Vis!. Only five hundred copies of the album were made, but file-sharing once again popularized it. Songs from the album are still routinely requested by members of the audience at Against Me! shows. The band rarely, if ever, obliges these requests. Gabel summarized his feelings on the subject in a 2007 interview with Racket Magazine:

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NO ONE fucking liked us. No one! Our first year of shows was just like us showing up, me and Kevin and unloading my acoustic guitar, and Kevin unloading his drums; which was like this weird home made kit, and people were like 'What the fuck is this?' and making fun of us. No one liked us at first, and now there's all these people saying 'I've loved you since Vivida Vis!.' No, you didn't. No one liked us when Vivida Vis! was around. I was there at the shows! There were TEN people there, what are you talking about? I know you weren't there... awesome to play something that would make somebody happy to hear. But sometimes there are songs that we don't necessarily play anymore, and when people ask for 'em it's like 'God, we don't want to play them anymore.' An example would be the song ("Burn") we uh, we don't play it anymore and it's like 'Hm... sorry.'
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In a blog dated November 21, 2008, Tom Gabel elaborated on the subject, citing his falling out with Kevin Mahon:

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A lot of the songs we played I've refused to play for years, and some fans of those songs have never quite been able to understand. They were songs that Kevin and I made together and their association to my broken heart turned me cynical and jaded towards them.
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In 2000, a self-titled, vinyl-only