|
The backbone of Fuel, Carl Bell and Jeff
Abercrombie grew up together in a small town in northwestern Tennessee. After
having strong aspirations of becoming a rock band and making it big, their
dreams were all but realized with the addition of lead singer, Brett Scallions.
He, too, grew up in a small town in Tennessee and sang locally with various
musicians. He befriended Abercrombie and the rest, as they say, is history.
The boys, including Jody Abbott on drums and Erik Avakian on keyboards, moved to
Harrisburg, PA in 1994 and released their self-titled tape called simply 'Fuel'
which featured 8 songs. Erik played keyboards and sung the backing vocals on a
few songs before he left the band and went his own way. After touring local
clubs a few years, Fuel released a second CD titled 'Porcelain' which sold about
10,000 copies. Not long after, local radio stations started playing Shimmer and
Fuel quickly became a local hit. On May 6, 1997 Fuel was signed to Sony 550
Records. They recorded Sunburn in July, 1997 but Hazleton was released by Sony
in the fall of '97. In Nov. of that year, Jody Abbott left the band only to be
replaced by Kevin Miller from a group called the Armadillos. During the
recording of Sunburn, rated one of the top 10 drummers in the world, Johnathan
Mover played the drum tracks. The album was released on March 31, 1998. Fuel
began recording their sophomore album in March of 2000 fresh off the road from a
whirlwind tour that would take them all the way to Australia and back!
Something Like Human was released in September of 2000. Since that time SLH has
been certified double platinum. Fuel was catapulted into mainstream rock as the
first single released from the record, Hemorrhage, shot up to the #1 spot on
Billboard's Modern Rock charts for 12 weeks straight. Quite an accomplishment
for a band that came from two very rural towns in backwoods Tennessee. After a
ball-busting year-and-a-half tour which included opening for the band, Aerosmith,
Fuel is taking a much-needed break from the road and the studio. We wish them
all the best on their well-deserved hiatus. |
