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It went well enough that the three decided to form a band, and placed an ad in a local music rag for a drummer... through which they met Charlie Swift, and "Holier Than Thou" was born. Although the band barely lasted 7 months, it laid the foundation for many standards, such as "Man From Nowhere", "Worship Me!", "Dry Times", and "Beer Song". Shortly after the beginning of 1993, Holier Than Thou split up with the departure of Jesse Larsen... however, a few months later, Zeke and Scott got together with Charlie again, and they jammed together a few more times.. out of which came the beginnings of songs like "Surf Crunchies", "Hypocrisy II", and "I Dream". Charlie soon got offered a job in Portland, Oregon, and left the band to pursue a better career opportunity. Not content to call it quits, Scott and Zeke placed another ad in the same music rag... this time for a drummer and lead vocalist. Finding a suitable vocalist turned out to me an excrutiating and daunting task.. and after interviewing over 100 people who either flaked, sucked, or just didn't fit, they decided to go as a trio with Zeke as the lead vocalist. It wasn't but a couple weeks when they met drummer Danny Dose. Danny brought a much rawer, high energy element to the band's sound, and it was decided that the old "Holier Than Thou" moniker just didn't fit the band anymore.. so they adopted the name "Plastic Joe". The origins of the Plastic Joe name are as follows: A friend of Zeke's ex-wife had a particular attraction to the football player Joe Montana and would always joke about how she wanted to do him... she liked him so much that she named her vibrator after him - you guessed it: Plastic Joe. They thought the story was so hilarious that the name stuck. Combining influences from hard rock, punk, rap, blues, and jazz, Plastic Joe performed numerous live shows during '94 & '95, and recorded two "EP" releases, "House of Hose," (April '94), and "Heinousity Abounds" (September '94) before disbanding in April '95 with the departure of Danny Dose. In the fall of '95, Zeke compiled those two releases together and created "Just Say Joe", a 12-song CD that covered the entire range of Plastic Joe's current repertoire.
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 Plastic Joe at the Colourbox, Seattle WA (10/11/97) ©1997-1998 Thom McGinty Productions. |
Scott and Zeke resurrected Plastic Joe in late 1996, with the addition of vocalist Monty Emken and drummer Mark Edwards. The band took on a fuller, more dynamic sound and started to delve into many new areas. They released a full length, self-produced CD entitled "Insidious Mind Candy", on October 11th, '97 at the Colourbox in Seattle, WA, which included redone versions of all the Plastic Joe standards, as well as one new track "Davenport", which displayed the energy the new lineup was capable of. The continued writing through 1997-98, and penned many other new pieces... "Family of Satan", "Out Of The Ordinary", and "Box of Hair", in which Scott introduced the Chapman Stick to the Plastic Joe sound. Zeke also began compiling CD's of oddball rehearsal material that he dubbed "The Plastic Joe Freak Show", due to it's propensity for the bizarre and non-sensical. Much of this material was unrehearsed improvisation, and ranged from serious to absolutely comical. Plastic Joe officially and permanently disbanded in February of 1999, with the departure of Zeke Taney. Scott Wedel and Monty Emken have gone on to start a project called "The Combined Geek". Zeke Taney is working on music as a solo artist. |
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