Cky

Camp Kill Yourself or CKY (sometimes stylized as cKy, or ckY in more recent years) is an American alternative metal band that formed in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1998. Currently comprising vocalist and guitarist Deron Miller, guitarist and producer Chad I. Ginsburg, bassist Matt Deis and drummer Jess Margera, the band has released four studio albums: Volume 1 in 1999, Infiltrate?Destroy?Rebuild in 2002, An Answer Can Be Found in 2005 and Carver City in 2009.

The band shares its name with the CKY video series, a series of skate and prank videos (and its crew) created by Bam Margera, brother of drummer Jess. CKY's music has been featured in all four CKY videos and various other related projects including Jackass, Jackass: The Movie, Viva La Bam, Haggard, Bam's Unholy Union, Viva la Bands and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Their songs have also featured in the video games Burnout Revenge, Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home, Jackass: The Game and the soundtrack to Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

History

Formation and early years (1994?1999)

In 1994, friends Deron Miller and Jess Margera formed a band under the name Foreign Objects. In 1995 they released a 5-track EP on Distant Recordings called The Undiscovered Numbers & Colors. In 1996, they formed another band known as oiL, with a friend they had met through their jobs at UPS, Ryan Bruni. The band recorded a number of demos, many of which featured tracks that would eventually become CKY songs. After a short while, Deron and Jess were ready to record Volume 1, largely without Bruni. It was at this point that Deron and Jess met Chad I. Ginsburg, who was working as a producer. The first material he had heard was the "Disengage the Simulator" demo, and he immediately wanted to be part of the band, having left previous band Rudy & Blitz shortly before meeting Deron and Jess.

The band had continued to use the name oiL, but shortly after officially enlisting Chad as their guitarist and producer, they had all agreed on a name change. Deron changed the band's name to Camp Kill Yourself and decided to head in a new musical direction. In 1998, Jess's brother Bam, a professional skateboarder, was featured on the Toy Machine film "Jump Off a Building" in a skit called "Bam's Park Footy". The Foreign Objects song "Genesis 12a" was featured in the skit, while in the credits there was contact info on how to get more CKY recordings.

When Margera, fast growing in popularity, released a full-length video of similar antics through Landspeed Wheels called "Landspeed: cKy" in March 1999, he used CKY's music exclusively as the soundtrack. The band's first albums, Camp Kill Yourself: Volume 1 and Camp Kill Yourself: Volume 2, were released on Teil Martin International to coincide with the videos.

The band embarked on the 1999 Warped Tour and played on the Volcom stage. During this tour, live bassist Bruni left the band, leading Ginsburg to play bass until Vern Zaborowski was recruited for the 2000 Warped Tour. Later on the tour, CKY were kicked off after being involved in a protest in St. Louis over the prices the tour's vendors were charging.

Mainstream success (2000?2006)

CKY signed to the Volcom Entertainment record label, who found the name Camp Kill Yourself, and the cover of Volume 1, to be offensive as it featured infamous politician Budd Dwyer shooting himself. Thus the label changed the album cover to that of a photograph from the 1999 Warped Tour, and negotiated a name change. Volume 1 was released a number of times, under varying titles of Camp, CKY and Camp Volume 1. In 2001, CKY signed to major label Island/Def Jam, where they re-released a remastered and enhanced version of their debut album. In September 2002, after being delayed by Island, the follow up album, Infiltrate?Destroy?Rebuild (IDR), was released. To support the album, the band embarked on a number of tours, including a tour with Guns N' Roses and a one-off show opening for Metallica.

In 2003, CKY released the DVD Infiltrate?Destroy?Rebuild: The Video Album, which contained music videos for each of the tracks on the album of the same name album, plus "Disengage the Simulator" and "96 Quite Bitter Beings" from Volume 1. All of the videos were directed or co-directed by Bam Margera. In July 2004, bassist Zaborowski followed in Bruni's footsteps and left the band. This did not affect the recording process because Deron and Chad had both played bass on all of the studio recordings. CKY then enlisted the services of a new bass player, Matt Deis, formerly of All That Remains. An Answer Can Be Found was released on June 28, 2005 and debuted at #35 on the Billboard 200.

The band is extremely involved with their fanbase, dubbed the "CKY Alliance". Over 9,500 questions have been answered since 2001. The Alliance's logo, an '?', is even featured on the cover of An Answer Can Be Found, as a tribute to the Alliance. On April 15, 2006, CKY announced that they were dropped from their label, Island.

On June 20, they performed in Millvale, Pennsylvania. The show was their longest show to date, playing almost thirty songs over nearly three hours. During the show, and later confirmed on their website, Deron said that the show was being recorded and taped for a live album which will be their next project after their fourth studio album. Just four days later, on June 24, CKY played a show in Burlington, Vermont. This show was cut short when Miller had a meltdown onstage and walked off. On June 28, he posted a statement on the CKY Alliance website citing drug and alcohol problems. CKY have toured North America extensively, as well as most of Europe and Australia.

Roadrunner and Carver City (2006?present)

On December 7, 2006, it was announced that the band had signed a worldwide deal with Roadrunner Records. Deron has officially stated that the band is working on the new album, which they will self-produce, and that a lot of material has been recorded. They are said to be sorting through hours of material and picking the 'best' to be put on the album, something Miller says they were never able to do with the others. Jess mentioned that with the last CKY record, it was a "total guitar record, but with this one, it will sound like a CKY record". "The Boardwalk Body" is about a childhood trip Deron took with his family to Wildwood, New Jersey, where shortly after his arrival, a body was found under the boardwalk; "Hellions on Parade" (which the band performed live on October 30 and 31, 2008 at the Hellview III shows) is the third song in the Hellview trilogy, being preceded by "96 Quite Bitter Beings" and "Escape from Hellview". However, if one wishes to include the oiL song "Thanks for the Ride", it is the fourth Hellview song. In an interview on the November 17th edition of Radio Bam, Deron revealed information about the album would not reveal the album title. A recent blog post by Deron says that the album is complete with the exception of mixing it and it should be released in late Winter to early Spring of 2009.

The band will also film much of the studio sessions and hope to release it on DVD.

Their new album Carver City was released on , 2009.

Band members

Main article: List of CKY band members
Deron Miller ? lead vocals, guitars, bass, synthesizers
Chad I. Ginsburg ? guitars, bass, synthesizers, backing vocals
Matt Deis ? bass
Jess Margera ? drums

Discography

Main article: CKY discography
Volume 1 (1999)
Infiltrate?Destroy?Rebuild (2002)
An Answer Can Be Found (2005)
Carver City (2009)

Notes

^ a b "CKY > Overview". allmusic.
^ ckyalliance.com
^ "CKY Signs With Roadrunner Records". Roadrunner Records. 2006-12-07.
^ CKY (Performers).. CKY - Hellions on Parade Live. YouTube.
^ "CKY Almost Done With LP But Not Ready To Discuss Dead Body...Yet". MTV. 2007-03-10.
^ "CKY Finishing Up Work on The New Album". Road Runner Records. 2009-02-30.