Biography:

The band formed in the late 80"s or early 90"s in New Jersey and featured musicians from some other pretty-well-known bands. Guitarist Louis Svitek had played in Chemical Waste with Jason Coppola and together with original bass-player John Monte in M.O.D. on their first album Gross Misconduct. Original drummer Reed St. Mark did in fact play with the (in)famous proto-black-metal band Celtic Frost on the EP:s Emperor"s Return and Tragic Serenades as well as the albums To Mega Therion and Into...... Expand full biography»

Biography:

The band formed in the late 80"s or early 90"s in New Jersey and featured musicians from some other pretty-well-known bands. Guitarist Louis Svitek had played in Chemical Waste with Jason Coppola and together with original bass-player John Monte in M.O.D. on their first album Gross Misconduct. Original drummer Reed St. Mark did in fact play with the (in)famous proto-black-metal band Celtic Frost on the EP:s Emperor"s Return and Tragic Serenades as well as the albums To Mega Therion and Into The Pandemonium. Pat Dubar had sung with the straight-edge hardcore band Uniform Choice during the 80"s. The band signed to the Sony/Epic-label and released their self-titled debut-album in 1991. From the beginning they were actually called Mind Fuck, but Sony wouldn"t let them release an album under such an offensive name. Hence the name Mind Funk, which seemed appropriate to a certain extent because of the funk-influence on the first album. Funk was not the only influence though, not even that dominating. There were very dark elements in there which were later developed on the 2:nd album. The band toured for a while and made an appearance at the 1992 Roskilde Festival in Denmark. By then original guitar-player Jason Coppola and drummer Reed St. Mark had been replaced by Jason Everman (formerly with Nirvana and Soundgarden) and Shawn Johnson respectively, and the band had already started to work on their follow-up. The reason for the split was probably mostly due to musical differencies, the band stated in an interview that they looked for people with a looser style to fit their new musical direction. It was also during this period that the band changed their name once again, however this change was not as big. The changed from Mind Funk to Mindfunk, from two words to one. The reason for this is not known to me. They managed to get a new deal, this time with Megaforce. They channeled their frustrations into the music and gave their new album the appropriate title, Dropped. The mood was a lot darker this time around and the funk-influences present on the predecessor were almost completely gone. The band chose to work with Terry Date as the producer, known for his work with for example Soundgarden, and this seemed to fit the new direction of the music. Slower, darker, heavier but still very Mindfunk-ish. The album was released in May 1993, a video for Goddess was released and the band immedeately embarked on a European tour together with Nudeswirl. The video got some airplay, but it seemed like a rather unwise decision to go out on a headlining tour that soon after the release of the album. Not that many people knew about the band at that point and the attendance of the shows left much to be desired. Mindfunk then recorded and released their third album, People Who Fell From The Sky, without much support from their label. They didn"t even have a contract in the US, hence the availability problems of the album. The music is even darker than on Dropped and reminiscent of early Black Sabbath mood-wise, preceding much of the stoner-rock movement that soon became trendy. And then there was the split-up, and from now on the picture gets even blurrier. There were talk about Pat, Shawn and Spike Xavier jamming after that, but Mindfunk was definitely no more. Pat is reported to have married, and reformed Uniform Choice, if only temporarily. Previous bassist John Monte played with the band Cheap Wine Graffitti, former drummer Reed St. Mark is reported to be a personal trainer at the Palisadium Health Spa in Cliffside Park, NJ, and Louis has been involved with Ministry since that, toured and played on their albums Filth Pig and Dark Side Of The Spoon, as well as with The Revolting Cocks. Pat and Spike are, as far as I know, currently in a band called Corporate Avenger. (Source: Fan Page, edited MB) «Collapse biography