Welcome to my 311 Info Page

A Little 311 History for Ya

Quate from Nick Hextum

We all grew up in the 70's in Omaha Nebraska. Tim Chad and I lived on the west side and we all went to Westside High School together. P-Nut and SA lived on the south side and they went to Bryan High School together.

During high school, Tim & I were in a band called "the Ed's" -named after our drummer, Ed. Our material was made up of original songs and covers by bands like REM, the Smiths & the Cure. At about this time, I was also playing in the high school concert jazz band with Chad Sexton.

At seventeen I graduated early from high school and moved to downtown LA in pursuit of a music career. When I returned to Omaha for Tim & Chad's graduation - the three of us got together for a jam session and the Omaha Stylee was born.

We called ourselves "Unity". We had a keyboardist named Ward Bones at that time. In '88 - '89 Chad, Bones and I moved to Hollywood and made an unsuccessful stab at getting a recording contract.

Chad moved back to Omaha first and hooked up with P-Nut and original 311 guitarist Jim Watson. Chad asked me to join their band to play a gig opening for FUGAZI on June 10th 1990.

In '91 we parted with Jim and added Tim Mahoney as lead guitarist. At that time, SA Martinez was making guest appearances at our live shows. In ,92 we added SA as a full member and moved to LA - 311, as you know it, was born.

We rented a small house in Van Nuys and we all lived there together. These were lean times that we spent practicing music, playing basketball, and unsuccessfully growing marijuana. There was also a lot of pasta eating and TV watching. Just before the band disintigrated into poverty we were signed by Capricorn Records.

Our first record "Music" was released with little fan fare in February of '93. We then had a bare bones tour that was temporarily sidelined because our touring RV caught on fire and exploded- destroying all of our equipment, clothes, money and personal possessions.

In July of '94 we released "Grassroots." By this time we were touring the U.S. non-stop. We moved out of our house in Van Nuys - moved our stuff into a storage space and literally just lived on the road. We put all our energy into our live shows and we developed an incredible grassroots following.

In July of '95 we released "311" and once again set out on tour. By '96 our shows and our fanbase had grown considerably - and the media, which had basically ignored us until then, began paying serious attention. In September of '96 (14 months after the "311" album was released) "Down" hit and became an across the board success on radio and MTV.

Now we are in LA working on our fourth album and preparing for another tour - it's '97 and life is GOOD!
- Nick Hexum

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