OK.... the pine started in 1998 the original line up was Kurt King on guitar, Josh yates on bass, and me (Roger King) on drums/ vocals. We recorded a demo that had our first 8 songs on it. dont even bother trying to find it. i only know a few people that still have a copy of it. the name "the pine" came from a movie called "blood in blood out" that we were all obsessed with for a couple of years. I think kurt at the time was 14, Josh was 16 and i had just turned 18. the band actually started on accident. my friend was over one day jamming /w kurt on guitar and i came in and jumped on the drums. we decided to record the song we had come up with just for fun. a couple of days later i showed josh and he came up with the idea that we should try and come up with more songs and possibly start a band. and so we did. After about a year and a half "the pine" started to die. i wanted to play guitar. it sucked trying to hear my voice when i was slamming on my drums so we got a new drummer which solved problems for a while, but soon enough this change proved to bring more problems. well, we dumped all the old songs, made a demo and soon after recorded out first self released 7". it got great reviews in heartattack and MRR and sold quickly.

we pressed 500 and have a few left. Soon after the 7" release Josh's career as a fire fighter took off and resulted in him having to be replaced w/kurts long time friend BILL MCCREARY. we taught BILL 7 songs in 2 days so that he could come up north with us to play a couple of shows. I was having thoughts about writing more songs for another release (possibly an LP) but didn't think it would happen till the distant future for financial reasons. i mentioned the idea to this kid named erik devin of Kordova Milkbar REcords in a letter i sent him along with some 7"s for trade. he said he was more then down to release the LP on his label so we got started on writing some new songs for it. soon enough we recorded 5 new songs and threw in 3 older unreleased ones previously recorded from the same recording session as the 7". well we were lead on for months and months that this LP was gonna be released but KMBR never came through....FLAKE?!?! i think so. oh well.no hard feelings. we went on a 2 week west coast tour in summer 2001. in the end it was decided that the pine needed to make a final long awaited constant contimplating change for the good of the band. we needed to find a drummer that we connected w/more on the friendship level. this is when JAMES BLANKENSHIP was brought into the band. James has been longtime friends with kurt and meshed well with the band.

(hey! band practice is fun again!!) At this time my friend spencer rangitsch of Into the Hurricane Records in Burlingame, CA let me know that he would be interested in releasing the LP. i talked it over with spencer and came to the conclusion that we needed to boot the 3 older previously recorded unreleased songs from the possible LP line up, and record 5 more brand new songs w/james . we went in 50/50 with ITH and pressed the LP. about the time of the release of this lp i found myself in constant contact with my new found pen pal ryan mclennan from richmond virginia.after a couple of months of constantly writing eachother back and forth ryan told me that he was thinking of starting a record label and that hed like to put out a record for us. we immediately agreed , recorded , and got the "homeless life" 7" in the works. within a month of recording our 4 newest songs the homeless life 7" was released on ryans new label, OWSLA. putting out this record with ryan was so enjoyable we saw it fit to always be involved with him. a few months later ryan came with the pine on our midwest tour during the summer. it was a lot of fun and i still cant believe how awesome it is to know that he flew across the US to hang out with us and show his support for about 5 weeks.

the day we returned from tour andrew bowman from ALONE RECORDS called us to say that he was into what we are doing and that he'd like to release a cd containing our first 7" and first lp. we agreed and began working on cover ideas etc. during the tour we started planning out early ideas for our newest lp release"lead blocks for feet". a small amount of time after we returned home from tour we immediately went in to record the 10 songs to be used for this record. months later it was released by OWSLA and ALONE RECORDS. about 2 months before the record was released keith from the blue hour contacted me saying that he would like us to go on tour with him and his band. we figured that this would be a great opportunity to get the new lp out there to the public so we quickly agreed.

this brings us to our winter 2003 US tour. it was amazing. about a week or 2 before we left for tour we played a local show and met donavan linear. he had just moved to bakersfield from las vegas. donavan seemed really into what we were doing and had a refreshing attitude as well as a talent in video editing and graphics for his project titled RISE ABOVE. we needed someone to come with us on tour to help out with things and document events and donavan was the perfect pick. for about a month we'were looking for a new drummer and that search came to an end when steven koontz joined the band. amazing. steven is awesome. we've now had steven in the band for some time and are shows and everything have just been better all around. we went through some twists and turns but finally headed into the studio august 2003 and recorded 19 songs to be released on alot of new things. well, thats the history. the pine at this point will always be roger,kurt,bill, and steven. no new members will ever be added in so this is it as long as the pine is in existance.