2004 - 2005

SPACEBEARD was conceived in early 2004 with the collaboration of Pete LaRussa on drums, guitar, and vocals, Joe Leone on guitar and vocals, and Andrea Verderame on bass. After a few jam sessions of original musical ideas, the trio became more serious about forming a full-fledged band. It was then decided that Pete would work exclusively on guitar and vocals and that they would seek out a full time drummer. During this time, the ever-important question of "what do we call ourselves?" arose.

The name SPACEBEARD originated from an inside joke amongst Joe and Pete that had to do with the infamous KISS interview on the Tom Snyder show in 1979. Midway through the interview, Ace Frehley says, "Spacebear," in a intoxicated manner that Joe & Pete imitated on many occasions. During one of these imitations, a "D" was added to the end of the word to pay homage to the full beard that Joe was sporting at the time. SPACEBEARD then became the fake band name till a real name came along. Ironically, some of the bands friends thought the name was very clever, so it became the official band name.

The members decided to demo up a few songs so potential drummers could hear the bands sound. Instrumental versions of songs that would eventually be known as, Swords, Rock Culture, Introduction Soon, and Beards, were recorded with Pete's newly acquired digital 16 track. As Pete worked on mixing the demos, Andrea put up spacebeard.com and in March of 2004 the songs were uploaded to site for all interested drummers.

After a long search, Pete Mags was recruited for drumming duties in the summer of 2004. His enthusiasm impressed the band so much that an offer to join was extended after only 1 jam session. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts kept the band from moving forward and the band amicably parted ways with Mags after only 1 year. Dave Franko, joined the band on drums shortly after Mags departure. With Dave on board, SPACEBEARD made its live debut at the "Wicked Monk,” in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, NY on October, 9th 2005.

2006-2008

The band spent the early part of 2006 vigorously writing songs and rehearsing its live performance. Dave departed the band due to creative differences and the band quickly found a very suitable replacement, Brett Malas.

After some more intense rehearsing and a string of live gigs around NYC, the band hooked up with John Clemente at Terminal One Recording studios in Brooklyn, NY, and recorded their debut CD, "Specimen" throughout the first half of 2007.

The album was independently released on October 26, 2007, and released to all the major digital distributors in the spring of 2008. Support for Specimen covered most of 2008, including their first road trip gig to Lake George, and a benefit show at the Hard Rock Café in NYC.

2009 -

Work on material for their second album began in early 2009. In May of 09, the first in a planned series of free Web EPs, "Studio Gig" was released on spacebeard.com. The EP featured live studio recordings of three new songs, Synthetic, Fill In The Blanks, and Good Earth. These songs and a few other new tracks made their way into the bands set list for gigs in the Summer and Fall of 09.

On January 31st 2010, pre production work for Album II began.....

Stay tuned