THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Scream formed in 1979. Drummer Kent Stacks, bassist Skeeter Enoch Thompson and the brothers Pete and Franz Stahl were attending school together in Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia, when they began to discover the punk and new wave scene in D.C. — and the provocative power of making music.
Like most of the punk bands in D.C., they were influenced by Bad Brains, but their rock ’n’ roll sensibilities set them apart. In 1982, they went into Inner Ear Studio with punk stalwarts Ian MacKaye and Edward Janney to record Dischord’s first album Still Screaming.
They followed it with a second full-length, This Side Up, in 1984. The band toured throughout the U.S. and were one of the first U.S. hardcore bands to tour Europe and the U.K. In 1987, they released Banging The Drum, which was recorded at both Southern Studios in London and Inner Ear. In 1988, No More Censorship was released on reggae label RAS. Scream returned to Dischord to release Fumble in 1993.
They made a few lineup changes along the way, including the addition of their friend Harley Davidson on second guitar. Most notably, when drummers Stacks (RIP) left the band to start a family, they asked a young local drummer named Dave Grohl to take over. After a number of years with “the Scream team,” Dave went on to join Nirvana and then form Foo Fighters.
In 1996, at a Christmas reunion show, Stacks returned as Scream’s drummer; the show was recorded and released as the CD Live At The Black Cat. Over the next few years, everyone branched out in different directions — Franz joined the Foos for a short period and Pete played with Goatsnake and Earthlings? The band returned as a unit, with Clint Walsh on second guitar, in 2011 to record the Complete Control Sessions, which was released as an EP on Side One Dummy and was, until now, the band’s most recent release.
For DC Special, Scream invited their extensive music community to help create a unique project that weaves the history of Washington music into the story of the band. Special guests on the record include: Mark Cisneros, Joe Lally, Derrick Decker, Bob Berberich, Clint Walsh, Dave Grohl, Onam Emmett, John Goetchius, Jerry Busher, Amy Pickering, Ian MacKaye, Amanda MacKaye, Brian Baker, Randy Austin, Martha Hull, Michael Reidy, Nate Bergman, Bobby Madden.
Recorded by Don Zientara just weeks before his studio was evicted from its longtime location, the record is rich with both the sounds of Inner Ear and those of friends and musicians who influenced Scream and who shaped D.C. music over the past six decades. DC Special embodies the same sense of community and politics that inspired Scream from the start and is a truly special collection of new music.”
