Shattered Faith

Shattered Faith by Jaymes Q. Mayhem

Shattered Faith has been writing and performing original punk rock since 1978 and are recognized as pioneers in the first wave of Southern California punk rock bands (like Social Distortion, TSOL, Black Flag, Fear, Circle Jerks, & many others in the late 70's).

Original Shattered Faith members Skitch Blade and Spencer Bartsch, the only working members of the band, pooled their money together (a whopping $300.00) and funded the first Shattered Faith recordings. The band gathered their gear and hauled it to a little hole in the wall recording studio in Midway City called Phantom Studios to lay down the first tracks. To this day no one knows what became of the reels from that session. A few days later those recordings would garner the band’s first ever radio airplay, on KROQ during the Rodney on the Roq show. With the final mixed tape in hand, Spencer and his girlfriend at the time headed to Pasadena where Rodney did his show live. She went to the back door upstairs and knocked and knocked until it swung open. There stood this little man, Rodney Bingenheimer, the undisputed king of music. After some small talk, she handed him the tape and gave him some basic info on the band, the door closed and she came back down the stairs. Just as she was heading to the car, Rodney came on the radio, "All right! I just had this cute girl come up at the back door and she gave me a tape of a band from Huntington Beach,” and without even listening to it, he put it in and “Trilogy “began to erupt out of the speakers. “All right! That was Shattered Faith from Huntington Beach…”

It would be 3 years later, 1981, before they put out their first record, the Shattered Faith 7” of “I Love America/Regan Country,” released on Posh Boy Records. Aside from appearing on a few compilations around this time, not much else had been released. Soon after the release of the 7”, Posh Boy Records approached the band with a contract to do an album, but they had a falling out when the band found someone to back them and wanted out of their contract with Posh Boy.

The members of Shattered Faith made their mark on the scene with their dark, melodic, upbeat sound grinding out punk rock classics like 'Reagan Country', 'I Love America', 'Right is Right', and 'Trilogy'. Over the years the band has developed a loyal following that continues to this day.

A couple years ago, Shattered Faith resurfaced and started playing some shows around southern California, having more notably participated in the 2003 Punk Rock For Recovery show, a benefit for Bali terrorist bombing victim Steven Cabler, where they performed alongside Pennywise, U.S. Bombs, D.I. and more. Soon after the band began to play more regularly, hitting the road, having recently done a tour with The Partisans on their last U.S. Visit.

During the band’s life span, only a handful of official albums were released. The first album, SHATTERED FAITH LIVE, contained both live and studio tracks. Sometime after that, SHATTERED FAITH VOLUME TWO was released. Aside from the collection of tracks on countless compilations and a few odd collections of Shattered Faith’s works, nothing comprehensive had been compiled and released until now. In April of 2005, BOOTLEG, a 28 track album was released on Finger Records. BOOTLEG represents 27 years of punk rock, spanning the band’s legacy from 1978 to 2005 and contains many songs previously unavailable on CD or just plain out of print. BOOTLEG also contains a brand new recording, a cover of Aggression’s “Secret Sex,” recorded in 2004 while Shattered Faith was on tour with The Partisans. The track was originally slated for release as a part of an Aggression tribute album slated for release later this year, but was graciously lent for use on this new album.

To this date, Shattered Faith is still playing shows and packing out venues, but with other projects and responsibilities on their plates, the band is not always able to play with the full surviving four members of the band. Spurred by that, three of the original members of Shattered Faith have formed a new project, Firecracker 500. With a Firecracker 500/Shattered Faith split 7” set to be released later this summer, a full length album slated for release later this year and an upcoming tour with The Partisans, Firecracker 500 is looking to pick up where Shattered Faith left off and is pushing forward to continue on the legacy that is Shattered Faith.

For more info and show dates visit http://www.myspace.com/shatteredfaith


SHATTERED FAITH BOOTLEG
RELEASE TRACK LISTING
Tracks:
1. RIGHT IS RIGHT
2. SHORT HAIRED THUGS
3. FINAL CONFLICT
4. I LOVE AMERICA
5. LAST NAME FIRST
6. WHAT HAPPENED
7. ANOTHER DAY PASSES
8. TOO TENSE
9. NO FUN, NO FRIENDS
10. THE VERDICT
11. ALWAYS THE SAME
12. VICTIMS OF SOCIETY
13. TRILOGY
14. DARK SIDE
15. REGAN
16. HARD TO SEE
17. RECKLESS WAYS
18. STRANGE DAZE
19. OUR TIME
20. DISCONTENT
21. BABY BABY**
22. SECRET SEX
23. TOO TENSE
24. USA
25. RIGHT IS RIGHT
26. MIRRORS REFLECT
27. TRILOGY
28. BORN TO YOU

**COURTESY OF AGRESSION
* COURTESY OF THE VIBRATORS