Agoura Hills, CA · post-grunge · alt-rock

Hoobastank

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Early-2000s alt-rock with one inescapable ballad and a harder-edged catalogue behind it — 'The Reason' opens the lighters, the rest brings guitars.

Hoobastank formed in Agoura Hills, California, in 1994, after vocalist Doug Robb and guitarist Dan Estrin met while competing against each other in a high school battle of the bands. They recruited bassist Markku Lappalainen and drummer Chris Hesse, and the young band worked its way through the Cobalt Cafe circuit in Los Angeles alongside Incubus and Linkin Park.

Their early material leaned toward funk-inflected alternative rock before the band settled into the heavier post-grunge sound that carried their major-label debut. A self-released 1998 album, They Sure Don't Make Basketball Shorts Like They Used To, built a local following that drew interest from Island Records, who signed the group in 2000. A completed second album was shelved after the band dropped its saxophone-driven direction, and some of its songs were reworked.

The reworked material became the self-titled 2001 debut, led by the singles 'Crawling in the Dark' and 'Running Away', both substantial rock-radio hits that pushed the album to platinum certification. The record built on guitar-driven post-grunge songwriting, and the band toured Europe and Asia behind it.

They are best known for 'The Reason', a ballad that became a substantial international hit in 2004 and remains their signature song, though the surrounding albums are largely guitar-driven alternative rock and alt-metal. Recording was produced by Howard Benson and delayed when Estrin was injured in a minibike accident. Hoobastank has sold ten million albums worldwide and released six studio albums and one EP, the most recent being 2018's Push Pull.

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post-grungealt-rock