Tomas Kalnoky

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Tomas Kalnoky

Background information
Also known as 3:3
Born December 24, 1980 (age 27) Prague, Czechoslovakia
Origin East Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.
Genre(s) Ska, punk
Years active 1995 – present
Label(s) Victory, RISC
Associated acts Streetlight Manifesto
Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution
Catch 22

Tomas Kalnoky (born on December 24, 1980) is the lead singer/guitarist and songwriter of the bands Streetlight Manifesto and Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution. He also held this position in the famed 3rd-wave ska band Catch 22, but left the band after making only one album (their debut, entitled Keasbey Nights) to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia, among other reasons. He has stated that visual art was his first love, before his love of music came about, and that he attended the Savannah College of Art and Design purely for visual art, with music not being a reason of attending the school. According to the booklet of Somewhere in the Between, Kalnoky also attended Rutgers University. He is also supposedly involved with a punk band called Man Bites Dog, which has a planned album titled "It's Go Time," although they have yet to release any material.

Kalnoky's family immigrated from the Czech Republic to the U.S. in 1985, when he was 5 years old. He has one brother, Achilles, who is a year older than he.

Kalnoky said he learned to play because of The Beatles to later start a band. His first foray into the music world began with the punk band Gimp, with whom he released one cassette, Smiles for Macavity, before moving onto Catch 22. Gimp can best be looked at as quintessential 90's pop punk, vaguely reminiscent of early Blink 182, albeit with more of an edge and more expressive lyrics. Gimp clearly shows Kalnoky's fascination with Cobain, and Nirvana. It was in Gimp that Kalnoky first wrote the song "Supernothing" which later appeared on the Catch 22 demo Rules of the Game (EP) and the album Keasbey Nights. However the original version is a much slower acoustic song, which features Tomas's brother Achilles on violin (Achilles would later appear on the Bandits EP A Call to Arms). Tomas is also involved in The RISC Group, of which very little is known.

Tomas played an Ibanez AS73 in the early days of Streetlight Manifesto, and now plays a Gibson ES-335. The AS73 may have been one of the items stolen when the band was robbed on Oct. 2nd, 2005.

Kalnoky's influences are many, the blending of which creates Streetlight's signature sound. Kalnoky cites The Drifters as a favorite band. Other musical influences include Nirvana, The Suicide Machines, and Squirrel Nut Zippers. He has also mentioned Czech folk singer Jaromir Nohavica as one of his musical heroes. There are also non-musical influences that affect Streetlight Manifesto, more specifically the lyrics, as the song "Here's to Life" refers to authors J.D. Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, artist Vincent Van Gogh, in addition to musician Kurt Cobain.

Tomas Kalnoky is also a self-proclaimed perfectionist, explaining the persistent delay of Streetlight Manifesto's second original album and the next album by the Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, which he says "Will be released by the end of this decade."[1]

Contents

[edit] Discography

[edit] Gimp

[edit] Catch 22

[edit] Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution

[edit] Streetlight Manifesto

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution website", 2007-3-16. Retrieved on 2007-07-29. "BOTAR is about to start recording its first full length. The plan is to release it around the same time or slightly after Streetlight gets its record done. But we're dealing with you-know-who here so expect it sometime before the end of our current decade." 

[edit] External links

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Streetlight Manifesto

Members: Tomas Kalnoky • Mike Brown • Jim Conti • Peter McCullaugh • Mike Soprano • Matt Stewart • Chris Thatcher

Former members: Stuart Karmatz • Pete Sibilia • Paul Lowndes • Josh Ansley • Jamie Egan • Dan Ross • Chris Paszik • Delano Bonner
Streetlight Manifesto Discography
Streetlight Manifesto Demo (2002) • Everything Goes Numb (2003) • Keasbey Nights (2006) • Somewhere in the Between (2007)
Related Articles
The RISC Group • Catch 22 • Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution • Gimp
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