Introducing the Band

Chad Sexton Nick Hexum Aaron “P-Nut” Willis Tim Mahoney Doug “SA” MartinezDrums Lead Vocals/Guitar Bass Lead Guitar Backup Vocals/DJ

6 Steps of How They Became

311

1. All five members of 311 grew up in the 1970’s in Omaha, Nebraska.

2. Nick Hexum, Tim Mahoney and Chad Sexton attended Westside High School. While at school together, Nick was in concert jazz band with Chad and he was also in a band with Tim called “The Ed’s”.

3. P-Nut and SA Martinez attended Bryan High School, which was on the south side of Omaha.

4. In 1988, Chad and Nick moved to LA to begin their attempt at fame.

5. After an unsuccessful run in LA, Chad and Nick moved back to Omaha and started to perform in 1990 with a guitarist named Jim Watson and a bassist named P-Nut.

6. In 1991, they dropped Jim Watson from the band and picked up Tim Mahoney as the lead guitarist. At this time SA Martinez started to make guest appearances and then became a part of the band

Quick InformationBelow is certification thresholds for the United States to classify records sales. The amounts in the table are in terms of "units," where a unit represents one sale or one shipment of a given medium. Certification is often awarded cumulatively, and it is possible for a single album to be certified silver, gold, and platinum in turn. An album that becomes platinum twice over, for example, an album which has sold 2,000,000 copies in the United States, is said to be "double-platinum," or sometimes "multi-platinum."

Media Silver Gold Platinum Diamond

Album 100,000 500,000 1,000,000 10,000,000

Single 100,000 500,000 1,000,000 10,000,000

Music video 25,000 50,000 100,000 N/A

The Sound of the 90’sIn the early 90’s the band released three albums on their independent label. The albums were “Dammit,” “Hydroponic,” and “Unity.”

They gained a solid fan base from performing songs on these three albums. Fans were impressed with their live performances and the word spread quickly in their home town.

They then decided to move west to California and purchase a small house together. They struggled monetarily until they were eventually signed to Capricorn Records in 1992.

Their first cd with Capricorn was released in 1993 and this is their discography from there until 2000:

1993 – “Music” (Gold)1994 – “Grassroots” (Gold)1995 – Self titled album “311” (Triple Platinum)1997 – “Transistor”1998 – “Omaha Sessions”1998 – “Live”

Discography from 2000 – Present:2001 – “From Chaos” (Volcano Records)2003 – “Evolver2004 – Released their “Greatest Hits ‘93-’03’” album2005 – “Don’t Tread On Me”2009 – “Uplifter” (Jive Records)2011 – “Universal Pulse” (ATO Records)

Their Current Sound

311 DayThis takes place on March 11th of each year and is a bang into their year of touring. This is where they announce who they’ll be touring with that year.

Normally they have one show that’s five hours long and they play well over 50 songs from various albums.

In 2012 they played two special three hour shows on back to back nights in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. During these two nights they performed 79 songs. In total 311 has produced 128 songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miU_haxZyW0

Questions and AnswersQuestion: Why are they named 311?

Answer: 311 is an Omaha police code for indecent exposure. One rainy day, P-Nut and some friends went skinny dipping in a public pool. They were apprehended by police. One of P-Nut’s friends (Jim Watson) was arrested, cuffed (naked) and taken home to his parents. He was issued a citation for a code 311 (indecent exposure). We thought this was funny, so we took it as our band name. After the humor of the name wore off – we still kept it because we liked that it was just abstract and that it did not define us in anyway. The name did not describe our sound or our politics, it just let the music speak for itself.

Question: Who were their influences?

Answer: The Clash, Bad Brains, The Descendents, The Cure, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone, Cypress Hill, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul and Led Zeppelin

Questions and Answers, Cont…Question: What’s their genre?

Answer: It’s hard to really define their genre as a whole because it differs from song to song. They’ve been described as an alternative rock band with reggae, rap, funk and hard rock influences.

Question: How long have I been a 311 fan?

Answer: I’ve listened to them since I was 5. Down was the first song that I heard and I now own all of their music. I’ve also been to 3 of their concerts. The one with Snoop Dogg was the worst.

Question: What’s something that 311 would be well known for?

Answer: They re-made Lovesong by the Cure for the movie 50 First Dates. Nick Hexum also helped produce other songs for that movie as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GCAKoihngA

References

http://www.311.com/band/band-history

http://www.counterculture.co.uk/interview/311-nick-hexum-2.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miU_haxZyW0

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/311-mn0000485135#discography

http://music.yahoo.com/311/biography/

http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/311/bio.jhtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GCAKoihngA