It all started back in the third grade. Stephen Foster and Justin Stadlbauer were two best friends that loved music a lot. Justin was into the Beach Boys while Steve was into Nirvana and Green Day. They hung out a lot, played tons of basketball, and tried to act as hippie as possible. They reconized thier love for music and decided it would be cool to start a band. Yea, this would be cool to start a band, but in the third grade????? Justin didn't know anything about the guitar and steve didn't know anything about the bass. (Steve wanted to be a bass player back then.) Naturally, this didn't work out. The times they did jam, they played "Louie, Louie," Justin's favorite song back then and now.
During the years following the third grade, Steve and Justin remained best friends and hung out a lot. Steve moved to the town in the middle of no were, Kuna, after the fifth grade.
Skip ahead to the summer of 1999. Steve one day brought over his amp and two guitars and wanted to start a new band with Justin again. He just quit his old band because they became a bunch of stoners. Anyway, Justin thought this was a really good idea and they busted out a few songs including the Offsprings "The Kids Aren't Allright," Goldfinger's "Superman," and Ozzy Osbournes "Crazy Train." Justin and Steve finally thought that they had something good going. And they did, but Steve had to move away for a year to State College, PA. Justin just sat around waiting for Steve to come back and get the band going. Well, Steve came back.
Steve was just as stoked as Justin was to get the band finally going. Steve wrote some songs in PA that they jammed too. They wrote the song "Your Moneys Worth" about the first day of summer and the begining to something great. The two continued to jam for about another week. The song "Different" also came out of that week. They then thought "hey, we need a drummer and a bass player!" So Justin called up Ryan Gratton to come and jam with them. Ryan came over and things went more than smooth, they went great! Ryan was now in the band. Justin played the bass during this practice since they didn't have a bass player yet.
Bass player. This is what Steve, Justin and Ryan needed. Justin didn't like playing the bass, so they got Kevin, Justin's litte brother to play the bass for them. Steve wanted the band to be named the Flukes, so the four became the Flukes. Many weeks, pizzas, pops, and sweedish fish later, Steve, Ryan, and Justin realized how bad Kevin sucked. (He was alright for never playing the bass before, lets give him some credit.) Kevin was soon kicked out of the band for being an idiot, sucking, and not being devoted to music. The bottom line is that Kevin was just stupid. Justin then moved back to the bass guitar for awhile. Justin then changed the band name to The Minority. (Not after the Green Day song but rather a punk mentality type of thing.) They became The Minority for the rest of the summer.
Tenth Grade, high school. Justin and Ryan headed off to Borah High while Steve went to some barn in Kuna to be taught how to be a cowboy. Ryan met this one guy who was just kicked out of the band Peter's Anatomy. His name was Austin Rambow and he played the bass guitar!!! Finally, Justin can play the guitar again.
Around the time Austin got into the band, Ryan named the band LESSER CAUSE which if I may say, is the raddest band name, and Justin kicked himself out of the band. Justin needed to do marching band stuff which was cool too. After Justin was done with marching band, he wanted to be back in the band. So he kicked himself back into the band.
After many practices, songs, and pizzas, Justin, Steve, Austin, and Ryan did their first gig. It was at Austins house for his birthday party. About 25 or 30 people came. Needless to say, the pit was massive, the food was good and the show went great. The songs went good though, even though and we played "Whatever" and the Pennywise song "Alien" a billion times.
Back to third person. Lesser Cause practiced some more, screwed off some more, and wrote some more rad songs. Well Steve wrote some really rad ones, like "The Big Step" and "The Ska Song." Justin also wrote some good songs too. They also recorded a CD, Changes E.P. which included the songs "Different," "Two Places," "Changes," and "Your Moneys Worth." If you were lucky, you could've got a limited edition copy with Ryan singing about his girlfriend on an acoustic guitar. The E.P. was put out on Steve's "Crappy Records" record label.
10th grade finally was over any the summer came. On May 31, Lesser Cause played their scond gig with a band from Boise High, "Cubed" at a kids house near Camels back park in Boise. It was a total success, Lesser Cause rocked the house. 50 or 60 people showed up for this gig and people complemented the band on how well they did and enjoyed it. Things were looking up and the band entered Steve's dad's home studio to record the follow up to the "Changes E.P." whitch the band made some money off of.
Studio time. The band went to record the new CD. Total Faliure. Nothing was working and tensions were being built between the band members. They decided to take a break for a while and regroup later. Justin went off to summer school and the others were plotting to kick him out, minus Ryan. So they broke the news to Justin and Justin was out.
Justin was replaced by Austin's old band member from Peter's Anatomy, Eric Hansen. The reason they kicked Justin out is because Eric had a P.A. system. Things didn't work out well, with Eric and on July 19, 2002 they decided to let Justin back into the band. Then things didn't work out with Justin again so they kicked him out again.
Now the official lineup for Lesser Cause is Steve Foster on Guitar, Ryan Gratton on Drums, and Austin Rambow on Bass. We are practicing a lot and working really hard.
The band is currently making another E.P. but with six songs and higher quality. Check out our show on Feb. 28 and you might get a free copy.
So there it is, the punkest story ever.