User:Culture Bunker/sandbox

The Culture Bunker is a Synthpop bedroom band from Montana consisting of Dominic, John, and Isaiah. Though they have not as yet made any releases, they have recorded a lot of original material, and rehearsed a number of covers.

The Beginning (2008-2013)

John and Dominic grew up together in Utah from 4th garde. Home schooled for a time, and then went to a small school in Park City. John’s first musical experiences were hearing bands like Level 42, Thompson Twins, A Flock Of Seagulls, and The Church, as a young child being played in the car by his mother, though his true love for music came upon the discovery of U2’s The Joshua Tree. That led to his discovering Achtung Baby, and from there a passion for U2 began. John introduced his musical influences to Dominic in 5th grade. As years progressed so did their musical interests. From discovering U2, John and Dominic began to listen to bands like Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, The Police, and The Cars. Their influences leaned more and more to New Wave and Synthpop as time progressed. In grade school they joked about starting a band, and even came up with some short songs to sing. Ideas and thoughts went on hold as they went ahead and focused on schooling etc. In 2014 John moved away from Utah, to Montana. There he went to an Independent Catholic school. Dominic still in Utah was usually in connection with John.

Audio Wide (2016-2018)

While schooling (age 16) John wanted to still break music some how. The spark came one evening when John was reading about Panic! At The Disco, and how they were initially a Blink-182 cover band in their early days. That moment John went and started writing music, he wrote two tracks. And then FaceTimed Dominic to get him on board. He agreed and so a year went by working on expiremental electronic music over FaceTime. The two needed a name. A friend of John’s in school suggested Audio Wide, a name taken from the word font on Microsoft Word. So under that name they messed around with sounds and synths. No gigs, but a lot of writing and creating did go down, In spring of 2018 Dominic and John as Audio Wide played a cover of OMD’s Almost at their school talent show, and received very positive feedback from their peers.

The Culture Bunker (2018-Present)

A few months before the school talent show, John had gone to an OMD gig in Salt Lake. After the gig he had met a producer named Jimm, they hit it off quite well, and Jimm introduced John to Paul Humphreys of OMD. Going back to Montana, John Set immediately to working on demos, which he sent to Jimm, and Jimm forwarded them to Paul. John continued to make acquaintances through social media and Jimm, in other bands like Eloquent, Mind Machine, and Hollowlove. He would post his demos on Facebook and he received much acclaim from family and friends in other projects. By the winter John and Dominic felt they needed a name switch they found their nich in synthpop music and thought they’d ask a friend to join the band. But they needed a new name. They had two they were trying to decide on and the eventually settled on The Culture Bunker after asking friends to vote on which of the two names was best. The name comes from a song by Liverpool band The Teardrop Explodes off their album Wilder. After the name change they asked their friend Isaiah to join the project, he accepted. Demos were cleaned up to group home demos recorded in John’s back room. And they are now getting ready for their school talent show again where they will play a cover of The Cure’s, All Cats Are Grey.