The Valley Arena

The Valley Arena is a band of a dying breed. If you can think back far enough--back before Hot Topic and the Warped Tour--there were groups who played challenging and innovative guitar-based music just to play. Sure, The Valley Arena's kindred spirits, Drive Like Jehu and Burning Airlines, never sold a ton of records nor were plastered on teenage girls' lockers, but their music continues to inspire and evolve, long after their members have hung up their instruments.

The Valley Arena is that kind of band.

Formed in Long Beach, CA in 2003, the foursome--singer/guitarist Warren Woodward, guitarist/vocalist Chris Stevens, bassist Dave South, and drummer Mike Nielson--paid their dues with other bands working the SoCal circuit (Mike and Chris first played together at the age of 13), but the first time the four attempted to combine theirseparate pursuits as one entity, things instantly clicked. A mere few months after their inception, the group completed what would become their first full-length, Take Comfort in Strangers.

Produced by Jason Cupp (The Elected, Finch, Val Emmich) while the band were still unsigned, the debut recalled D.C. darlings Fugazi and Q And Not U, the darker undertones of the first generation of post-punk and art-punk with a hint of mid-'90s Touch And Go Records-style aggression. Shortly after the completion of Take Comfort... the band was approached with a record deal offer by New Jersey's Eyeball/Astro Magnetics Records.

Since the 2005 release of their debut LP, The Valley Arena have relentlessly toured the U.S. and Europe (supporting Thrice), garnered rave reviews in magazines like Alternative Press, Filter and Revolver and, defying all logic, saw their home-made music video voted #1 on Fuse's Oven Fresh show above Coldplay, U2 and Eminem.
In late 2006, without losing a beat, they returned to the studio with Jason Cupp once more to furiously begin work on their 2nd full length, the highly anticipated, highly evolved Sesso.Vita (Italian for "Sex/Life"), a string of stories set in a desperate, hyper-sexual, re-imagination of their hometown. With a new arsenal of songs under their belt --ones that find the band trading in their brash guitar battles in for snake-like grooves and songwriting that digs deep under the skin--the band will spend 2007 pushing forward with the same scrappy ambition and abandon that has endeared the band to the many that know them.

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