SAVE FERRIS **

Save Ferris was a ska punk band formed circa 1995 in Orange County,California. Their name is a reference to the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

History

The band formed in 1995 after the dissolution of a number of Southern California third-wave ska bands. Los Pantelones members Brian Mashburn (guitar/vocals), Bill Uechi (bass), Eric Zamora (saxophone), and José Castellaños (trumpet) joined with Larry vocalist Monique Powell, Nuckle Brothers trombonist Brian "T-Bone Willy" Williams, and drummer Marc Harismendy to form the original Save Ferris.

Financed by Uechi and Mashburn's families, as well as Powell's sister, the band released their debut EP Introducing Save Ferris on Starpool Records in 1996. Later that year, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave the band a Grammy showcase award for best unsigned band, earning them a recording contract with Epic Records. The band released their debut full length for the label in 1997. It Means Everything featured several re-recorded tracks from the EP, several new songs, and a cover of Dexys Midnight Runners' "Come on Eileen," which the band released as a single. The band also released "The World is New" as a single which was featured in the film The Big Hit as well as being used in Tara Lipinski's debut program as a professional skater in the 1998 Skate TV Championships. The album charted on the Billboard Top 200 at number 75 that year.

The band toured extensively in support of the album, opening for bands such as Sugar Ray,The Offspring, and Reel Big Fish, and Powell also provided vocals on the Reel Big Fish song "She Has A Girlfriend Now." In April 1998, they made their television debut on HBO's music series Reverb and made an on-screen appearance in the film 10 Things I Hate About You. The album proved to be a moderate success in the United States, selling over 400,000 copies, and spawned three Top Ten hits in both Japan and Mexico.

Winter 1998 saw the departure of drummer Marc Harismendy. Evan Kilbourne joined shortly thereafter, and the band began writing their follow-up to It Means Everything. The appropriately-titled Modified was released in October 1999, approximately one year later and charted at number 136 in the Billboard top 200 that year.  The album saw the band moving away from their ska-punk roots and into pop-rock territory. The band toured with fewer ska-punk and pop-punk bands as a result, opening for bands like Lit.

2000s

José Castellaños left the band in June 2000, citing a desire to return to school. He was replaced by T-Bone Willy's former bandmate from Six Feet Deep and Nuckle Brothers, Oliver Zavala.

Brian "T-Bone Willy" Williams quit the band in 2001.

The band continued to tour in support of Modified throughout 2000 and 2001.

In August and September 2001 the band did a short tour of the U.K. playing with the bands Lightyear and Jesse James.

The final performance with Powell, Uechi, Zamora, Kilbourne and Mashburn, the last true version of Save Ferris, was held in Culver City on September 20, 2002.

After the band parted ways, Powell self-financed what she called a "For the Fans" tour in 2003 essentially playing the same set list as previous Save Ferris shows but backed by hired musicians.

On March 29, 2003 at Ska Summit 2003 in Las Vegas, Monique Powell of Save Ferris played on the main stage to a thunderously positive response.

Powell later founded the band "The Mojo Wire". She has stated that the "Mojo Wire is nothing like Save Ferris", but "still so much fun".

Post-breakup

Since the breakup, Monique Powell has focused her efforts on her studio career. Her work can be heard on albums by The Used, Lostprophets, Hilary Duff, Goldfinger and others. Her new band, The Mojo Wire began headlining shows in the LA area after an overwhelming response to the four demos posted on MySpace in 2008. Consideration of the songs for TV and film have been coming in.

In 2003, Bill Uechi, Brian Mashburn, T-Bone Willy, Eric Zamora, and Oliver Zavala started the band Starpool with Alan Meade on vocals and Phil Hanson on drums. They released an EP in 2003 titled STRPL E.P.0001 before going on hiatus for two years. The band started to play once more in 2006 releasing the single Start Again in 2007. Former Save Ferris member Evan Kilbourne joined the group as its drummer in 2010 when Starpool released a full length album in 2010 called Living in Transition.

In addition to Starpool, Brian Mashburn plays guitar for Power Serge and PopBritannica. Bill Uechi also plays in Red Panda with John Tran of Home Grown.