In a famous rock and roll story Dartford schoolboy Keith Richards met Mick Jagger at the railway station, took one look at the stack of blues albums under his arm and a musical partnership was born. Solemn Fist founders Dave Gens and John Sponarski, then 13 and 14 respectively, met much the same way, although they struck up their friendship while skateboarding on the concrete truck lanes at a municipal sewage plant in Richmond, BC.
�I was trying to put a band together,� Gens remembers, �and we started talking about music while we were walking home so I asked him if he wanted to come jam.� He did, �and I sucked so they made me play bass for about a year�, John says, and Dave adds: �And he got a lot better.� The third point of the Fist�s songwriting triangle joined soon after. Mike Agranovich and Gens had been playing music together since the ages of 9 and 10, each sharing what he learned with the other as well as a mutual love for hard, fast, melodic guitar music.

And there it might have ended, too, as it does for a million young high school bands had not McNair Secondary music teacher Jan Berman pressed her significant other, Brian Goble, into service as a judge at the school talent contest where Solemn Fist, its members all still under the age of 15, �just blew� as the band recalls now.

�But Brian came up to us after and said we reminded him of punk in the old days.� Which he would know a little something about; Goble is better known as Wimpy Roy, lead singer of The Subhumans and later bassist for DOA, both iconic names in punk history. Goble has been working with the band since then, culminating in a three-song 24-track demo this summer for interested labels and talent bookers.

What has them interested is what The Vancouver Sun�s music critic John Armstrong called �savage musicianship � legit musical chops and punk rock ferocity.� The �legit musical chops� he refers to come in part from the fact that Gens, Newman and Agranovich (now ranging in age from 15-17) are all conservatory trained musicians whose sphere of listening encompasses everything from Wes Montgomery to Bad Religion � the members also play in their school�s concert and jazz bands. A growing interest in politics inspired the band to not only entertain listeners with their lyrics, but also to entice them into becoming politically interested.

Along with Goble and Armstrong (the latter familiar with punk himself, in earlier days as Buck Cherry, guitarist and singer for Vancouver�s legendary Modernettes), the band has champions among contemporary musicians. Principal among them is The Black Halos� Billy Hopeless who has tirelessly promoted the band on his CFOX Punkorama radio show and appeared onstage with the Fist.

Since the band�s creation, Solemn Fist has made a strong presence in the Lower Mainland all ages scene by playing many community centers and halls, and is expanding it across the province.

"I urge everyone to help push Solemn Fist..." - Billy Hopeless (Black Halos)