The Starting Line

with The Story So Far and Ultra Q The Starting Line (TSL) is a four-piece pop punk band from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. They formed in 1999 as Sunday Drive and are signed to Virgin Records, and were previously signed to Drive-Thru and Geffen Records. In March 2008, the band announced that they are going on break for about three years in order for Vasoli to explore Person L, Matt and Tom to explore The 76, and Mike to spend time with his two daughters. In 1999, the band that would become The Starting Line was initiated in Churchville, Pennsylvania via an AOL instant message from guitarist Matt Watts to vocalist/bassist Kenny Vasoli. It asked if the then fourteen-year-old Vasoli, who was at that time in a band called Smash Adams, was interested in "Jamming and shit", as the message title read. Only a few weeks later, Vasoli found himself rehearsing with his future bandmates Watts, guitarist Mike Golla and drummer Tom Gryskewicz. Soon, the band started touring under the name Sunday Drive, selling out home-made merchandise and a self-recorded demo cassette titled Four Songs. Their first official release was a three-way split with The Jimmy Tuesday Band and The Commercials contributing three songs each, released on KickStart Audio in 2000. Sunday Drive was soon approached by We the People Records and asked to produce a recording session (the infamous We the People Records Sessions). Set for a release in December 2000, the twelve songs were initially planned to become the band's debut full-length With Hopes of Starting Over on We the People Records, but they ended up serving only as demos for tracks on future releases, as the band signed with Drive-Thru Records in April 2001. On Drive-Thru, they soon released their debut EP With Hopes of Starting Over. Yet, as the name Sunday Drive was already taken by a Christian rock band, they went on as The Starting Line. On July 16, 2002, almost exactly one year after the release of their EP, the full-length Say It Like You