The Amazing Kill-o-watts, originally HAM, began life in 1995 when Tyson Markley, bassist for local Peoria band Superfub, began to write his own songs. Beginning as a solo idea, Tyson taped a pair of Hit Sticks to his feet, grabbed his guitar and amp and hit the local open mics. Later that year, as Superfub met its demise, Tyson asked his musician friends to help him record his songs. This was released on cassette tape as "Optimus Prime and the Government Cover Up." With his cassette in hand and a new dream, Tyson began to put together his band HAM.
In his search he remembered a drummer he met in high school cross country named Tom Satterfield, later dubbed Atomic, who had been playng in basement bands for a few years already. By March of 1996, with help from recording guy Ed Carper filling out numbers, HAM began playing shows in the Peoria area.
Soon Ryan Hovind was brought in as full time bassist and Tom's 14 year old sister Marsha was put in the position of lead guitar. In the fall of '96 Ryan left the band to pursue his studies and Marsha was moved to bass.
HAM continued to play, build a reputation, and with the prompt additon of Mike "Manfred Milktoast" Farmer on lead guitar, they recorded 3 cassette releases, later re-released on CDR (Lo Fi Sci Fi, Tales From the Planet Bob, and The Orange Album) and one compact disc "Brave New World". In the spring of 1999, Mike Farmer left the band and was replaced by Mike "System 2" Taylor.
Things ran smoothly for a short while, but soon went sour. Tom got fired and Marsha quit. Tom was re-hired and Tyson, Tom, and Mike attempted a three piece called HAM3000. This lasted for one New Years Eve show. But not to fear, for the HAM lineup was still active as a Spy/Surf Instrumental group called The Killowatts.
In the Early days of 2000, Mike Taylor left the band to fill the recently vacated position of lead guitar in local girl pop band The Velouria Beat. Former Velouria lead guitarist Laura Parsons was brought into HAM to replace Mike, and Marsha rejoined the band. This became to be known as "The Greatest Trade in the History of Peoria Rock and Roll EVER!"
In the summer of 2000 The band HAM came to the conclusion that it needed a more representative name. They adopted the Surf band name of The
Kill-o-watts. later that year, the Amazing was added to help differentiate from similarly named bands. This line up played all around the mid-west and released one compact disc, "The Terror of Technology". In 2002 Laura left the band to pursue her studies.
Marsha finally moved back to her original positon of lead guitar and bassist Davin Field was added to the line up. Davin was a long time fan and added a bit of missing muscle to the band, literally. (our equipment is heavy!) Davin played bass for the band for 40 months to the day, then in August 2005 he quit, for six months.
While Davin was on hiatus in Tibet, long time friend Sean Brant took over duties on bass. Sean played quiet a few shows with us during this short stint. Sean was eventually recalled to activity duty by a super secret branch of the military that handles super mutant uprisings and Wal-Mart gift card theft.
Davin returned to the bass and the band begun recording what would become their final album "Set to Self Destruct", due out sometime in the Summer of 2007. The band played there last show in March of 2007, after over 11 years as a band.
