Album Notes

From the ashes of no less than 3 disbanded Baltimore rock bands, Challenge Club rose like a phoenix. Passerbys stood in awe as its six members emerged from the smoldering dust while a nearby 120 piece orchestra set the scene by playing the most triumphant music imaginable. This is the experience that Challenge Club tries to recreate in the studio and on stage.

Challenge Club is a six-limbed beast. The six limbs are labeled George French, Billy Gordon, Steve Hefter, Pat Hughes, Chris Laun, Phil Turner. Chris and Steve are the primary songwriters and singers but the entire band helps to flesh out the songs and can be seen rotating between guitars, keyboards, bells, percussion, and multi-part backing vocals to accomplish this task.

To retell the whole story of how all six band members came to meet would be like drawing a confusing and incestuous family tree. Let's just say that Chris and George had been playing in a band called Army of Pirates. Meanwhile Steve and Phil had been playing in a band called Sons of Buford. Across town, Billy and Pat were in a band called the Newlyweds. All three bands ended at more or less the same time. Steve, Phil, and Billy formed a short-lived band called The Fighting Tricycles and when that ended Chris and George entered the picture and said "Hey since we're all friends, why dont we all play in once giant family-style buffet band?" Still minus a drummer they got back in touch with Pat and that was that. The name was mostly based on an inside joke involving challenging each other to various competitions (like watching all 7 Police Academy movies straight through), though some contend it was also chosen because of the difficult feat that is fitting six multi-instrumentalists on small club stages.

Though still relatively young, Challenge Club has begun to make a name for themselves in the Baltimore scene earning rabid fans and complimentary drinks along the way. In November of 2005, they released their debut CD entitled A Briefe Description In The Notorious Life Of Challenge Club Together With Their Ignominious Death.