Mariner Nine


Contact: Tyler Harold @ 610.692.5983

Email Contact: Matthew Neal (mattn33@aol.com)

or David Boyd (dboyd@locke.ccil.org)

Mariner Nine came together in January of 1991 at The Hill School, a small boarding school in southeastern PA. The story of their meeting starts when David and Brian began to play in a cover band at dances, and similarly embarrassing-to-talk-about school functions. After Dave was graduated, and headed off for the Grasham's School in England, Brian met Jason (through an acquaintance for whom he had very little respect). They became roommates and started recording songs together. Meanwhile, Dave was really hating England. He soon returned home. Now a trio of two guitars and a bass, Dave introduced Matt to the band to play drums. (Strangely enough Matt and Brian went to the same Parochial several years earlier, but hadn't spoken since the 1986 school musical in which they both played drums, each in his own opinion better than the other. It is still a sore subject to this day.) They called themselves Mother's Garden. Shortly thereafter Brian dropped the guitar to fulfill his high school dream of becoming the vocal successor of BonoMichaelStipePerryFarrell(ouch!)BlackFrancis. In the fall, they moved to West Chester at the State University there.

Photo to the right L-R: Jason, Matt, Brian, Dave.

Funded by some gracious personal friends, and months and months of personal savings the band recorded a Five song EP in January 1993 at Inner Ear Recording Studios with Don Zientara. However, insufficient funds and the inability to tour made it very difficult to press and promote their record without months of delay.

By the time "Sentimental Dog Poems" came out, the band had already made such drastic changes in their music (by incorporating more lead vocals from Jason, and now, again, full time guitar from Brian) that the music on the CD no longer represented them accurately at all. It was not a good time to be flat broke.

Then in Summer of 1994 in a West Chester sports bar, they met Tyler Harold. His jovial and sensitive personality shone like a new ray of hope for the band. He was huggable, had a positive outlook, and was a *huge* music fan. Although he had no prior experience in the music business, he enthusiastically helped the band by booking better shows than they had ever played in their four years together. In a very short time Tyler became an integral part of the band.

In March 1995, the band released its first recording under the new name Mariner Nine. It was a 7" recorded in January at WGNS in Washington, DC by Geoff Turner and Nick Pellicciotto. It was a refreshing experience, and although certainly loud at times, it was not for purposes of being the loudest. They've been through hard times, but Mariner Nine is NOT an angry band.

In April, their 20 song EP (don't ask, just give it a listen sometime) "Waiting For Gachet" was recorded, again at WGNS (release date: 8/95). To date we have played in all states between Virginia and Connecticut. The new 13 song CD was released February 20th, 1996, and is available at finer record stores everywhere.

Band Members


David Boyd (dboyd@locke.ccil.org) plays the bass guitar. It's fretless if you must know that. He's twenty-three years old, and a recent graduate of The University of DE where he majored in History. Since that time he has been working toward starting his own micro-brewery, among other projects.

Jason Knight plays guitar and sings. He is a student at West Chester Universtiy where he too is a History major. J is twenty-three and single...most of the time.

Brian McTear plays guitar and sings as well. Unlike the others, he is not twenty-three, he is twenty-two and has only recently smoked marijuana for the first time. Brian is a Latin Major at West Chester University. Don't ask him what he will do with that...it's a sore subject.

Matthew Neal (mattn33@locke.ccil.org) plays drums. He is twenty-three and a recent graduate of West Chester with a bachelor's in Astronomy, Anatomy, 19th Century French Literature, and Communications. Matt is a smart fucker.

Tyler Harold, band manager, is the ambassador of Mariner nine. He is trained in matters of army intelligence, and skilled in the powers of persuasion (neither is a lie). Ty is twenty-four and sensitive, but lots of fun.