In 1983, lead vocalist David Hilker launched 1933, an aptly named bar band celebrating the end of Prohibition fifty years earlier. Hilker’s five-piece new-wave outfit also featured Geoff Grace (keyboards, vocals), Tim Henry (guitar, vocals), Curtiss Smith (bass, vocals), and Frank Contreras (drums). The quintet gigged relentlessly, five to six nights a week, fifty weeks a year, in bars and nightclubs across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Their grueling schedule left little time for proper studio sessions, so the band loaded up a Tascam 80-8 8-track recorder and took LA producer Eric Barnett on the road. Utilizing band houses, motel rooms, and empty nightclubs during off-hours, they churned out demos and ultimately recorded their self-released EP. In 1989, after years on the circuit, David Hilker went on to found Fervor Records and the rest is history!
