In 1995, Carlinville high school chums Christopher Yeager and Mike Frizzo
decided to start a rock band. They came up with a suitably cryptic name–October’s
Perpetual Agony–and Frizzo owned all the necessary equipment. But they still
faced a problem: Yeager couldn’t play an instrument.
“Mike had to show me how to make a bar chord,” Yeager says.
He recalls beginning–“like any good punk band”– with covers of Misfits songs. After a few months, they changed the band’s name to the title of Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 poem “Gunga Din.”
“It’s probably pretentious to get your name from something like that, but the truth is I first heard it on the Howard Stern Show,” Yeager admits. “Turns out there are a good dozen bands named Gunga Din. There’s even one called ‘The Gunga Din,’ but we are the only plural one!”
Once the name was settled, the two bandmates went looking for a bassist. “We went through half a dozen,” says Yeager. “All of them even worse than we were, which definitely was saying something.”
Their very first show took place in their original bass player’s backyard. Yeager recalls the bassist was also watching a beer keg. “He would dispense beer for people while we played–actually between songs.” They were asked to stop because people wanted to listen to the radio.
After six months, they had another gig, but no bassist. Yeager’s little brother, Cory, wanted in. He couldn’t play bass, but he already had a few guitar lessons under his belt.
“When I brought the idea to Mike and Chris, neither was enthused,” Cory says. Of course, his older brother seemed the most resistant. “So when two brothers are having a fight over something, what do they do? I told mom. Mom yelled at Chris. I became a Gunga Din.”
Over the next year, the band would play anywhere they were welcomed–at backyard parties, in basements, in parks. Their first “real” show, Chris Yeager recalls with solemnly, took place at Springfield’s Skank Skates. “It was a big deal to me because that’s where I saw shows basically every week while I was in high school.”
The band evolved. “After a long, long, long time of sucking really bad, we started playing better and changing our sound a lot,” says Yeager. “We sort of became known as the band that went back and forth from pop-punk to grind-metal.”
The changes were witnessed by an expanding group of fans, and they’re documented on the band’s various seven-inch records, EPs, and two full-length albums. Medio-core, a 1999 CD recorded on a shoestring in an Edwardsville studio, features 14 original speed-punk songs plus breakneck covers of Jewel’s “Foolish Games” and the Misfits’ “Astrozombies.” Yeager’s lyrics–born out of frustration, anger, depression, and “the usual angst,” he quips–reflect the teenage years: “With your friends behind you / You’ve got nothing to fear.”
They decided a second guitar would not only make the band more dynamic–it would free up Yeager as a vocalist. In 2000, Hank Patton of the Millwall Bricks joined the ranks in time to record on their seven-inch Misc. The following year’s Every Time You Think of Me, I Think About You Twice showed the Gunga Dins hitting their stride, with precision riffing and vivid lyrics.
The band then traveled to Fort Collins, Colorado, to record 2002 Demo at the Blasting Room, a state-of-the-art studio owned by Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton of the punk band the Descendents. The compositions had become more complex, featuring interweaving guitar melodies. “That’s the only recording we’ve got that doesn’t make me cringe when I hear the vocals,” Yeager says.
Back home the Gunga Dins had become central to Springfield’s all-ages punk and hardcore scene, out of which grew a wealth of bands as well as friendships. But that scene began to dissolve with the closing of the Asylum and Rise. While Yeager is encouraged by the different musical styles presently found among bands here, he also believes “all Springfield needs right now is a really solid all-ages venue.” Griffin Kay, of the local rock group Killer Japanese Seizure Robots and a co-founder of the St. Louis record label Aim and Fire, suggests that the Gunga Dins and the all-ages scene were synonymous. One played off the other.
“For the first month of living here, my time was spent either by myself watching movies or working my crappy Burger King job,” he says. “Then one day, while driving around being bored, I saw this place called the Asylum and saw there was a show that Friday night. The week went by and on Friday, after getting off work, I figured I would check it out. I went to the show and made friends, which kept me from becoming a complete recluse. The Gunga Dins were also the only local band that played regularly and brought different and interesting bands to Springfield. They had a big hand in broadening my musical horizons.”
Kay is not alone in giving Yeager and his bandmates credit for expanding local musical tastes. Chris Somer, the driving force behind Rise, points out, “I didn’t care for ’em much the first time I saw ’em, but I wasn’t really open-minded to a lot of the music that I am now. I liked the innovation. Instead of just sticking to one specific style of music and denying everything else, they threw in a ton of influences from acoustic, emotional guitar riffs to blast beat-infused death metal. They actually played a benefit show for us to raise money in order to get Rise off the ground.”
But as all scenes come to an end, people also grow up. After eight years, the Gunga Dins will play their final show this Sunday, August 3. The night will be bittersweet for many fiercely devoted fans, such as Patty McGrew, who sees the band’s breakup as yet another major blow to Springfield’s rapidly disappearing all-ages music scene. “It’s going to be a shame–and a heartbreaker–to watch them go,” she says, “especially after losing the Asylum, Rise, and the bands that fell when those venues did.”
Local artist Adam Bertels believes there’s no use lamenting–it’s simply time for people to move on. “Eventually the high notes just don’t seem to be as sweet as they used to. Life is just not ‘gunga’ anymore. I think Chris, Hank, and Frizzo still enjoy playing together, but I also think they all realized this was as far as they could take the Dins.”
Facing the prospect that the Gunga Dins will deliver their final performance this Sunday, many are waxing nostalgic about the interactive side of the concerts. “They have had a big following as far back as I can remember, and I’ve always seen a bunch of kids singing and screaming along at their shows,” Somer says. During the final show at the Asylum, the Gunga Dins smashed all of their equipment, much to the joy of the stage-rushing crowd, who grabbed pieces for souvenirs.
Sustaining the band for eight years consumed Yeager’s life. He says it required not only dedication but a whole lot of money too. The band’s success never brought much in the way of cash–it always had to be financed by outside jobs. “I don’t even know if I want to know the actual dollar amount we sunk into the band,” Yeager says. “We never, ever even came close to breaking even. I might have to kill myself if I knew.
“There were probably a lot of things we could have done to get bigger or more popular or whatever, but that wasn’t really the point. Although none of us was attempting to make the Gunga Dins a career, we were content with just sinking every bit of spare time and money into it for years and years.”
Yeager, who recently married, notes he now holds down a secure job as a computer
programming “dork.” While he wants to close the book on the Gunga Dins, he says
he’s thinking about forming another band. After all, he’ll still have his PRS
guitar and Mesa half-stack amplifier. “Six more payments and it’s mine!”
The Gunga Dins final show gets underway at 5 p.m. this Sunday, August 3,
at the American Legion Post 32 on Fifth Street in downtown Springfield. The
event is free and also features performances by the Timmys, Pound for Pound,
Black Ice, Killer Japanese Seizure Robots, and Last Words.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2003.
