Album Notes

Awarded "Best Pop Band" by the readers of the Phoenix New Times, Sugar High's songs had already been featured in various movies even before they put out a CD! Their song "Turbo-Teen" is featured during the opening titles of the 20th Century Fox film "Drive Me Crazy", starring the lovely Melissa Joan Hart. Here's the full story:


Sugar High Biography

In late 1994, Adrian Evans and Sean Gens--who attended Paradise Valley High in Phoenix together--teamed up with Clevelanders Patrick Singleton and Rusty Marlboro, to form Autumn Teen Sound. The band became a favorite of the Tempe, Arizona power-pop crowd with their Rubinoos/Raspberries influenced 3-minute rock anthems.

In 1997, aspiring filmmaker, Karl Hirsch used four of ATS’s songs in his award winning, independent film Green (look for a cameo from the band onscreen). The movie went on to become a cult classic, and the first of many movies that would play a part in ATS’s future.

A name change to Sugar High--drawn from a Stephen Duffy album--couldn’t stop the band’s internal problems and on New Year’s Eve 1997, the band went their separate ways.

1999 saw the band’s reconciliation and reformation--sans Marlboro--with new guitarist Jason Garcia. 20th Century Fox licensed “Turbo-Teen,” a song from the Green soundtrack, for the opening credits of the film Drive Me Crazy, which paid for Sugar High’s self-released 2000 EP Ice Cream Anti-Social. Sugar High material featured in another film, The Last Big Attraction, in 2000, and a new song, “She’s Cool, Yeah!” was released on a charity album called Clear the Air.

KASC college radio station awarded Ice Cream Anti-Social “best recording” in 2001, and shortly afterward, the Phoenix New Times named Sugar High “best pop band” in their annual awards issue. That summer saw Garcia’s departure and the arrival of Israeli-born Amir Neubach on guitar.

On November 20, 2001, Saccharin & Trust, the band’s first album was released--distributed by Not Lame Records.

2002 included the departure of original member Patrick Singleton, the addition of Pat “Mick” McWilliams on bass, another song in a movie--“Wreck Myself” in Killer Bud--and another “best pop band” award from the New Times.

In 2003, another Saccharin & Trust song--“Scare Me”--featured in a movie: Scarecrow Slayer.

Amir Neubach returned to Israel in 2004, and Sugar High carried on as a three-piece.

In 2005, bassist Matt Carlson joined the band and TV-movie The Third Wish featured Sugar High. Songs for an upcoming album began to take shape and the only live performance of the year was the summer wedding of the band’s longtime friend and road manager, Luke.

2006 saw the inclusion of “Dirty Ballerina” on the Carbon 14 compilation Encyclopedia Arizonica, as well as Saccharin & Trust in Get Out magazine’s “25 best albums” issue. The departure of Carlson and McWilliams that year led to the return of Patrick Singleton and Jason Garcia during the recording of Sugar High’s first new album in six years, Let the Sunshine Out--due in summer ’08…