Adelphi (band) - History

History

Adelphi was a four-piece rock band from Towson, Maryland, a suburb about 10 minutes north of Baltimore. Guitarist/singers Alex Sophocles and Ryan Keaton had been the original members of a band called Fat Austin. Along with bassist Rusty Walters, Fat Austin started off covering the popular pop-punk songs of Blink 182 and others. In 2001 the band released an EP featuring their song "On My Own" (or Brutus for their first fans), a local favorite.

By the fall of 2002 Fat Austin was known as Adelphi Rock and within a few months of the name change original drummer Peter Hennings was out and Tom Haller was in as Adelphi's official timekeeper. The quartet recorded a DIY album entitled "Don't Pass Go" in Spring/Summer of 2003 with the help of Matthew Thomas of American University. The album was pressed and self released under the name "Adelphi Rock". In the fall of 2003 Adelphi Rock recorded 3 demo songs in an effort to attract label interest. A song called "Attention" was one of the three and it quickly helped put Adelphi Rock in the #1 spot on the then-new Purevolume website, a spot which the band held for weeks. This garnered some label interest and in early '04 Drive Thru Records extended the offer of a demo deal to the band. The band would go onto drop the 'Rock' from their name, being simply known as Adelphi. Due to interest from multiple labels Adelphi instead chose to fund the completion of their own demo and recorded 3 additional songs in the winter of 2004. It was around this time that original bassist Rusty Walters was replaced by Kevin Lichtfuss. After playing these additional demos for Drive Thru records the band and label reached an agreement. Their signing was officially announced in the spring of 2004.

Adelphi was known for their innovative style and exceptionally tight live performances. Their innovation was a result of a band made up of musicians with a wide variety of influences and interests. Aside from their classic rock and contemporary musical influences, band members drew from many different sources to create their sound. Drummer Haller regularly played with a Polka band prior to and during his tenure with the band. Their relentless evolution prevented them from writing the same song twice, resulting in a very diverse collection of demos. This relentless evolution was also rumored to be behind Adelphi's split with DTR, due to unresolvable disagreements in creative direction. The band's current status as a Drive Thru band is ambiguous. To date the band has not officially been released from their contract but for all intents and purposes both the band and the label consider their relationship terminated. In late 2006 friend and producer Matt Thomas stepped in to replace Lichtfuss as bassist. The band continued to add to their collection of demos (rumored to number well into the high 20's or low 30's) for some time.

In late 2007, the band announced they would play their final show on December 30, 2007. Keaton, Haller, Thomas went on to play in the band The Everlove. Haller also drums for the John Mancini Band.