Year Long Disaster

Year Long Disaster was an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 2004. Founding members Daniel Davies and Rich Mullins first met in November 2003, after Mullins had left Karma to Burn and was playing in the band Speedealer, and after completing a drug rehabilitation program together, the pair met Brad Hargreaves in November 2004, forming Year Long Disaster after an informal jam session. Davies and Mullins had seen Hargreaves playing a gig with Hours and Minutes and invited him to that jam session, not initially knowing that the drummer was a member of Third Eye Blind. Musically, the Los Angeles-based band took its cues from the blues-rock and Southern rock movements of the 1970s. The band's breakthrough came after signing with Californian record label Volcom Entertainment in May 2007, quickly entering the studio with Tucson, Arizona-based producer Jim Waters and later joining Clutch on a month-long United States tour. Their self-titled debut album was released on August 21, 2007, by Volcom Entertainment, and it helped the band gain wider recognition, as they released their debut full length album with Volcom Entertainment and were named one of the best new bands for 2008 in Rolling Stone Magazine. That same era saw the group support Norwegian punk rock outfit Turbonegro on the North American What Is Rock Tour, beginning in September 2007, and in July 2008 they contributed a cover of the Iron Maiden track "Running Free" to the tribute album Maiden Heaven, before later touring with Motorhead alongside Misfits. The band's career arc continued with a shifting lineup and a notable second album. On March 9, 2010, Year Long Disaster released their second album, Black Magic: All Mysteries Revealed, produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz, with some songs inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Around this time, the band parted ways with drummer Hargreaves due to his ongoing commitment to Third Eye Blind, replacing him with Karma To Burn's Rob Oswald, and in June 2010 Year Long Disaster toured Europe with all three members of Karma To Burn as part of the band. The overlap between the two acts grew so pronounced that with singer/guitarist Davies next joining Karma To Burn on a July-August tour of Europe, the two groups seemed to be sharing identical lineups, leading to reports the bands had effectively merged. Guitarist Will Mecum also became part of a later incarnation of the group during this period.