Dust for Life

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Dust for Life is a post-grunge band formed in December of 1999 after the dissolve of the Memphis grunge band Bacchanal. Bacchanal's founder, Jason Hughes filled former singer Chris Bangs' shoes with Bacchanal's keyboard player, Marc Gurley. Hughes and Gurley joined with already formed band, Spaceman and began writing material for their new project. Spaceman consisted of Tim Fowler, Todd Scott, and Gerard Jones. Despite the fact that Hughes was credited with writing all of the material on the first Dust for Life self-titled cd including the hit "Seed", Fowler, Scott, and Jones co-wrote and collaborated much of the music, particularly "Seed" but weren't given credit for it which began the conflicts that would soon follow. "I wrote the main riff and the crybaby part of Seed, and Seed's main riff itself was part of an old Spaceman song that Jason loved and wanted to use. I have all the original demos we made before going into the studio to prove it, but that's not what I'm about. I just want the truth to be known," says Fowler. "Hell, when you bust your ass day and night working to help write music that will turn some heads, and then one guy goes out and quickly copyrights all the work under one name, "his" name, nothing good can come from that. How can you build trust from that? When that happened, Dust for Life became a one man band with four talented but "used" musicians standing in the shadow. He kept telling us he would correct the problem, but it never happened," Fowler went on to say. After many months of inner fighting and lack of trust between the members, a break up took place when Fowler, Scott, Jones, and Gurley decided thay had had enough, left the band and went their separate ways from Hughes to escape the stigma that had attached itself to the Dust for Life name in the Memphis area. Fowler had this to say about the breakup: "Just to set the record straight, we left the band on our own terms. It was our choice to leave and so we did. We have no regrets. When we left, Jason was like: "'Well I own everything. Dust for life is mine; I own all the music.'" I was like, "Yeah, dude, that's the whole problem isn't it? And so yeah, Jason took the band to a higher level when he replaced us after we walked, but we were tired of the fighting and just wanted to move on, so congrats to him. There are no hard feelings as of now, but for the past six years or so there's only been one side to the story, and that isn't cool." November of 1999 saw the end of the original Dust for Life. Shortly thereafter Hughes replaced all the members with Chris Gavin and a few others to move on to the next phase of Dust for Life. Jason Hughes and Chris were introduced by mutual friend and current agent, Carol Snodgrass.

They quickly formed a bond mutually liking artists like Black Sabbath and Alice in Chains. They decided to form DFL and wrote 15 songs over that winter. Josh Weil and Rick Shelton rounded out the lineup. In April 2000, Dust went to Ardent Studios in Memphis, TN with co producer/engineer, Pete Matthews, ostensibly to record "demos." What they came out with was : "Step into the Light," "Dirt into Dust," "Dragonfly," " and "Where the Freaks Go." "I remember getting the songs and overnighting them to Jeff Hanson (manager of the band Creed) and him calling us flipping out," says Jason Hughes. Dust for Life never looked back. They quickly signed with Hanson MGMT and Wind_Up records and finished the debut disc in June 2000 at Ardent.

In August 2000, the band joined Creed on the road as a support act with Dave Rhea, from the Von Ray (Elektra) on bass. They spent the whole fall that year touring with 3 Doors Down and Nickelback and Cold. Step into the Light got an unprecedented 48 ads at radio the first week including KROQ in New York and KROQ in Los Angeles. Step was eventually played on 338 radio stations simultaneously while reaching #10 on Billboard's Active Rock charts. "We had a really good band and great songs, but we were also lucky to be there," said Chris Gavin. The band garnered rave reviews and was featured in Hit Parader, Circus Magazine, Metal Edge ,Guitar One, and Guitar for the Practicing Musician just to name a few. Dust for life even appeared as guest hosts on VH1's ,The Rock Show.

"Seed" was released as the second single in the spring of 2001 and even without any push from the Label it went in to Billboard's Top 40 of Active Rock songs. The band toured throughout the spring and played shows with Linkin Park, Lifehouse, Fuel, Stone Temple Pilots, and Tenacious D, just to name a few. Then, in May of 2001, the wheels came off. The band found out that all of its "untouchable " publishing money had been spent frivolously by the involved parties. They came out publicly with what happened and why they were off tour in the middle of the record cycle in what Chris and Jason would later call "the smartest dumb move we ever made." The band promptly released Hanson MGMT ,Flood Bumstead, McCready and McCarthy from their roster.

Shortly afterwards, Rick Shelton left Dust for fame and fortune in Lava/Atlantic band, Course of Nature. Jason, Josh and Chris soldiered on through 2 more tours and many new songs that they thought might never see the light of day. The bad business eventually took its toll on the guys and the band has been "on break" until now.

In July of 2003, Chris and Jason shared song ideas and decided that it was time to dust off the guitars. With Rick making the second Course record and Josh busy managing the breakfast bar at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Memphis, Chris and Jason recruited young guns, Mike McSorley on bass and Steve McClenaghan on drums. "They have brought a whole new dynamic to the group and they have that untainted enthusiasm that really gives the new songs a lift," says Jason. The band independently released an eight-song EP in 2004 called Degrees of Black.

Jason Hughes has a new band called Dark Things Betray. Dust for Life is on an indefinite hiatus.

Chris Gavin is playing in a band called White Noise Theory, which will be a music outlet for his original material and some covers.

As of November 26, 2007 Dust For Life is currently working on a possible new album. Both Chris and Jason are tracking about 15 songs, which hopefully will see the light of day in the year 2008. There is a new fire burning, as stated on their myspace page through one of their blogs, and it might be time for some new material.

In June 2008, the song "Release The Flood" off their fourthcoming album was used by TNA Wrestling to help promote their Slammiversary event.