Inspired by Boston kid rockers Boys Life and Vitamin, precocious Brookline High freshmen David Kleiler, Chuck Hahn and Geoffrey Quelle formed the arty/new wave trio Origin of Species. Geoffrey's limited abilities and adolescent drunkeness meant much older accomplished 18-year old drummer Andy Burstein replaced him. They met the stoner, Keith Moon-devotee because Andy had a summer job with David's eccentric, James Dean/Joe Strummer-obsessed black/Jewish troublemaker BHS classmate, Jon Easley.
OOS broke up after sophomore year because David and Chuck wanted to be more "serious" about high school. As juniors in '82 they jammed with Andy and sax player Nate Bowditch envisioning a band a la early Dexy's Midnight Runners. However, Jon wanted to sing badly and badgered David to jam. Almost as a joke, David imagined a Flipper-like side project called "Sorry" where Jon could scream "We're Sorry" over the rest of them playing. After one rehearsal, Jon's obvious charisma convinced everyone immediately that Sorry could be a real band and gig on a level OOS had never dreamed of.
Sorry played their first show at an Allston college house party on Holloween '82 with John Havorka's Noise Pencil. All ages shows at The Media Workshop and The Club with bands like the Necros and Toxic Reasons soon followed. David enlisted his grammar school friend Josiah McElhaney (AKA "Little Joe") to do sound, which further legitimized the band, though they often had to leave after playing sets at bars because they were way underage. Jon's outrageous, angry performances attracted fans. He often humiliated legal-aged audience members by pouring beer on them. Jon had signature stage moves. He could swing his overweight body up in the air and parallel to the floor for a suspended moment before he came crashing down in a punk pratfall.
Their first radio tape of "My Word"/"One More Step" led to a watershed Gerard Cosloy promoted gig in April of '83 with Husker Du and The Proletariat. "My Word" became the lead off track to Gerard's compilation Bands That Could Be God. This sent Sorry back to the studio in the winter of '83 to record a full-length LP Imaginary Friend produced by Frank Marshall of The Proletariat and Radiobeat owner/engineer, Jimmy DuFour. It featured a guest appearance of Roger Miller on piano, and the song "24" which poked fun at the emerging "roots rock" local college music scene typified by The Del Fuegos. Fabulous femme fatales and 'MBR jocks, The Mystery Girls played the record incessantly and gave these teenage boys their downtown loft as a rehearsal space.
By this time Sorry was the house band at Chet's Last Call where Chuck and David did SAT homework while playing shows with Dinosaur, The Volcano Suns, Salem 66, Christmas, Uzi and a slew of bands rising in Burma's wake. After graduating high school and living the dream of participating in the Boston rock scene, David deferred his enrollment at NYU to go to college for a year.
After Harvard radio station programmer Patrick Amory wrote an insanely glowing review of Sorry band in Conflict, Jon enlisted him to become Sorry's manager. Patrick helped land bigger all ages shows where they bonded with their idols. After an exclusive Huskers/Sorry Mystery Girls party at Chet's, Little Joe ended up being a Husker's roadie. After a show at The Channel with the Minutemen, Mike Watt fixed Sorry's tragic VW van. Signing to Gerard-Cosloy-run Homestead, Sorry went into the studio over the Live Aid concert weekend in the summer of '85 to record "The Way It Is" with now well-known producer, Lou Giordano (Goo Goo Dolls). The album featured definitive pre-emo/indie type songs "Deny," and "We're Just Making Noise."
Much to Jon's chagrin and the disapproval of fans, David stuck with his plan to move to NYC right as the record was released. The band played a couple of shows in the fall of '85 and early '86 including a bizarre Maxwell's appearance where Vernon Reed's Living Color opened for them, and a show with Big Black at Irving Plaza where Patrick met his future business partner, Chris Lombardi. While David was at school, Chuck joined Peter Prescott's Volcano Suns as a guitarist. Jon moved to NYC and played in bands such as Burn with Matt McCann and Gerry from Phantom Tollbooth. Later David replaced Chuck in the Suns, and Andy started a grindcore band Slughog. In the mid-nineties Jon joined forces with Jason Asnes from Nice Strong Arm to form Crown Heights and sign to Rick Rubin's American Recordings.
David now lives in Los Angeles working in film and TV production and recently is playing Volcano Suns reunion shows. Josiah McElhaney is a world-reknowned glass blower and artist living in New York and Sweden. Chuck is a lawyer who resides in Boston and published an unauthorized biography of Prince. Andy still plays, DJ's and resides in Boston as well. Patrick is now the General Manager of Matador Records in NYC and works with Gerard and Chris Lombardi.
In late September of 1998, Jon died unexpectedly while living in Atlanta. He never lived long enough to hear his influence on more recent emo/screamo bands. As with many early 80's rockers Sorry never reaped the benefits the 90's alterna- rock revolution, but certainly helped lay its foundation.
A partial list of bands Sorry played with includes:
Big Black, Christmas, Corrosion of Conformity, Dinosaur, Flipper, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Moving Targets, Negative Approach, Proletariat, Salem 66, Social Distortion, Toxic Reasons, Uzi, Volcano Suns.
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