Justin and Chris were also in their own local bands before Saosin (As Hope Dies and Portrait in Blue respectively). Beau would work with As Hope Dies as a producer in the pre-Saosin days. It seems that all of them at least knew of each other by 2002— they lived in the same area and were playing similar-ish kinds of music. Even Anthony was only a few connections away from Beau, who appears to have known people all over the place.

Beau, Alex and Zach (the OG Saosin bassist— Chris was actually their second) were all in Open Hand together, playing drums, guitar and bass. However, this was not Beau’s first serious attempt in the music industry. Back in the 90s, he played guitar in a band called Kosmos Express— a Britpop-inspired sort of thing that actually experience mild success. He allegedly left that band after hearing Jimmy Eat World and Sunny Day Real Estate; clearly he saw which way music would be going over the next decade and jumped ship. Beau has mentioned that he actually played Seven Years and Translating the Name at an Open Hand rehearsal before Saosin was even an idea. The songs were instantly written off by the singer, which would inevitably push him to leave the band, taking Zach with him in the process.

2002-2003

Due to wanting to create a different kind of music, both Beau and Zach left Open Hand to form a new band of their own. They would bring on As Hope Dies’ Justin Shekoski to share guitar duties. For a while, this was the most complete the line-up would get. Getting the right singer proved to be interesting, to say the least. After asking around, Beau heard of this guy in Philadelphia who fit the bill: his name was Anthony Green. After some contact, Anthony bought a plane ticket out to California. He was in. The singer also brought the name Saosin with him for the band. It had previously been used as a song name for Audience of One, but he liked it so much it was used as the name for his new band. Open Hand drummer Alex Rodriguez wanted to join this new band, but also felt he needed to finish his previous obligations first. So, even though they had a drummer waiting in the wings, someone else would need to go into the studio with them. Beau paid local musician Pat Magrath to do this. Magrath was never intended to work with Saosin after this point, so that was the extent of his contribution to the band.

Right before Beau was about to wrap up recording Saosin’s first five songs for their first EP, Translating the Name, he got a new guitar amp. This one was much better than the one used in previous recordings. When Justin became aware of this new, better amp, he wanted to re-record all the guitar parts for the EP with it. And they did just that. Beau and Justin sat up all night going back over and recording the guitar parts of each song again. It payed off, too— Translating the Name sounds so good, and surprisingly high quality for an indie release at the time. Who knows how much of a difference that new amp made to the overall sound of the EP. Clearly it was enough of an improvement to use the newer recordings, so we’ll never know how the original recordings would’ve sounded, and if Saosin would’ve gained as much traction in their early days if the sound quality wasn’t as good as it was. Because, let’s be honest, it’s hard to listen to music when the audio quality is subpar. All because someone was crazy enough to want to use the Shiny New Thing as soon as possible.

Saosin were also one of the first bands to really gain traction on the Internet. Using platforms like MySpace, the band generated hype by releasing demos for people to listen to and get a feel of what their music would sound like. This helped to gain interest before they had any music out, or played a single show. There would be no proper releases or live shows until mid-2003, and they were using social media to drum up attention for months before that. This meant that they were able to create interest in Saosin not only in their local scene in Orange County, California, but all around the United States. Anyone could create a MySpace account, so the exposure on their was infinitely wider than what they would receive solely in the local scene.

With the last-minute changes to the recordings, Translating the Name was ready to be released to the world, and would be on June 17th, 2003. The cat was out of the bag. But would all the hype lead to something bigger?

2003-2004

With Translating the Name out there for everyone to hear, it was time for Saosin to start gigging. Still without the line-up most associated with this time, they played their first live show on the 19th of June 2003 at the Showcase Theater in Corona, California. However, there would already be a line-up change before this first show. Zach would not stay for long— all thanks to Justin, apparently. In an Alt Press podcast episode in 2007, the band would say that Zach left due to Justin and Anthony having issues with the bassist’s girlfriend. Which wasn’t exactly a lie, since Anthony has said that he didn’t particularly like her. But almost a decade later, Beau would spill the beans on the Get In The Bus podcast (hosted by long-time friend and blessthefall frontman, Beau Bokan). According to him, Justin actually slept with the man’s girlfriend, leading to him giving an ultimatum: either they keep Zach or Justin— one or the other. And, because they clearly knew they wouldn’t be able to find a better guitarist, they chose to keep Justin around. So Zach was gone soon enough. They would then recruit Chris to fill the empty spot in the line-up. Due to ongoing obligations with Open Hand, Alex was still unable to join up with Saosin. Danny King would temporarily play with Saosin until Alex was free to step up. He debuted with the band for their July 17th show, also at the Showcase Theater. By now the line-up was really complete, and Saosin were ready to take on the world.

Saosin would embark on their first tour that summer, with Anatomy of a Ghost, the Bled and Boys Night Out. This started with that Showcase Theather gig in mid July, and ended on August 12th. They travelled all over the United States, from Arizona to New Jersey to Utah. Later on, AOAG’s Dewey Halpaus would talk about his band listening to Saosin demos in their van, and how they actually dropped out of an East Coast tour to go out on the road with them. Clearly impressed by the newer band’s music, they managed to live up to Dewey’s (and everyone else’s) expectations with a surprisingly put-together performance for a group of guys who’d been together for barely any time.

Saosin would follow this run with another, hitting the road this time with Story of the Year— another cross-country tour. Most people that listen to Saosin are well-aware of the arson story by now, but it’s always worth recounting it because it just highlights the insanity of the scene at the time. On the first night of the SOTY tour, someone in the Saosin crew picked up a bunch of fireworks at a stop. Anthony (powered by a bottle of NyQuil) and Justin (who was just like that), some miles later, thought it would be a brilliant idea to light the fireworks inside the van and then throw them out of their van towards Story of the Year, who were a bit behind them. The fireworks burned down parts of the field that they were driving through, and so, naturally, the police got involved and arrested Anthony (no one has ever said that anything happened to Justin, so it sounds like he got away with it).

All this time the band were gaining more attention, particularly online. The SaoBoard was set up around the time of these tours as a way for fans to communicate with each other online, about the band and other topics, as well as ask the band questions (there was, however, an announcement at the top of the “ask the band” section saying not to ask when the band would be playing near you, so clearly it started off being 90% that). It was a great way for people all over the United States (and rest of the world— someone posted to the message board in 2004 about when Saosin would be coming to the UK) to connect with others that shared their favourite band. The message boards are also a goldmine for old gig photos— when the WayBack Machine loads them, that is.

They would round out 2003 with a run of shows in California, including one at Chain Reaction in Anaheim. If you listen to literally any band from Southern California that came about in the 2000s there’s a chance you’ve heard of the place. This is one of the few early shows that was caught on video in its entirety— it’s on YouTube for anyone interested. The energy was off-the-walls insane— just watch everyone (band and crowd) lose their minds during They Perched On Their Stilts… and tell me I’m wrong. Saosin would also start 2004 with a bang, joining Avenged Sevenfold (another bunch of mostly-OC natives) for a few days.

However, nothing can ever be this good for so long without something happening. In February of 2004, the band posted to their website that Anthony had quit the band and gone home to Philadelphia. This would later be explained as being caused by homesickness, as well as wanting to be a bigger part of the songwriting process but not knowing how to communicate. However, it was made clear that this would not be the end of Saosin, and that they would carry on without Anthony.

2004-2005

In a classroom in Vista, California, a young guy humming one of his favourite band’s songs would be told that their singer had quit. Instead of acting like a normal person, he ditched class to go home and email them to see if his classmate was actually being serious. He got a reply, confirming what had happened and that they were looking for a new one. After a bit more back-and-forth, the student recorded himself singing and sent it in to the band, who then invited him to Newport Beach to practice with them.

His name was Cove Reber, and he was about to become Saosin’s next singer.

They would bring Cove out for their week on Warped Tour that summer, although he would only be singing one song each day— the rest of the duties would be carried out by Phil Sneed of Story of the Year. The first day went horribly as Cove barely hit a note in key. He was not used to this, and not being able to hear himself just added fuel to the fire. Years later, he would say that he thought at the time that the others would kick him out the band immediately due to his performance. They did not happen, however. In fact, they would end up keeping him around permanently. Cove’s first full tour with Saosin would come in the later half of the year, with Strung Out. This would go a lot better than that first time singing I Can Tell… with them on the SmartPunk Stage at Warped Tour.

In some ways, Cove was very different from his new bandmates. Not including the age difference (Alex and Beau were over five years older than him), he was also a lot more laid-back. There would be no firework incident round two. People who knew them before would come up to him and say how much the others had mellowed out since he got there— which was a bit of a surprise to Cove, who thought they were still batshit insane.

Around this time, the singer started to think about what he wanted his role in the band to me. Did he just want to keep filling the shoes, or did he want to do his own thing? The longer he was in the band, the more he started to go his own way, straying away from simply trying to replace Anthony. He noticed that most bands in the scene had pretty depressing lyrics to their songs; as someone who’d had a pretty alright life up to that point, this wasn’t really something Cove could do with Saosin. So, he decided to try and put a bit of hope into the scene through his own words. And it kind of worked. Whilst most bands in the genre were lamenting about their shortcomings, Saosin weren’t.

In March of 2005, Saosin signed to Capitol Records. They knew that major labels had more money and resources, and made the decision based on what was best for the band. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have misconceptions about what being signed to a major label entailed. Chris would say that he thought they would just have the pick of the best of everything, and that the label would help them fully realise their vision. This would be proven wrong countless times. For starters, they made the band release their self-titled EP when they didn’t want to. They probably just wanted something out with Cove on vocals, as by this point Anthony had been out of the band for two years and there still hadn’t been any official release with Cove.

They would go back on Warped Tour this summer, for more than the seven days they did the year before, but still not the full thing. It definitely went better than the last time, but that really wouldn’t have taken much. And, to round off their long year of touring (because they continued the overly-busy schedule of the last two years for some reason), Saosin joined Avenged Sevenfold on the road again— this time for the City of Evil tour across North America. This went on from late October to early December, and is probably where the photo of the guys dressed as A7X comes from.

After the City of Evil tour, the band would take a break from touring to go into the studio with Howard Benson for their first album in 2006.

2006-2008

Going into the studio, there had already been disagreements with the label. Capitol really wanted them to record with Howard Benson because just about every popular band at the time had done it; Saosin, however, were wanting to look around a bit more, and even consider having Beau do it like he did for Translating the Name. Eventually, the band decided on Benson anyway, so this didn’t turn into a real problem. They would be put up in a fancy rental in Los Angeles for the duration of the recording, with a $25-a-day food budget each to boot.

Time and time again, this band have proved they haven’t ever been able to do anything easy, and the first album was no different. For a while now, the others had been sort of micro-managing Cove. Whilst this obviously isn’t very nice, it is important to remember that in the early days the frontman had a lot less experience in the music industry than some of his older bandmates, and they clearly wanted to make sure he got everything right for what they wanted to do. But this came to a head in the studio, with certain people in the band nitpicking and berating every mistake Cove would make. Howard did as good of a job as he could in mediating this, clearly used to bands arguing in the studio. The album was finished pretty quick, mainly because of the strict schedule that Howard followed. Having a lot of bands booked with studio time means needing to run like that, but it means that they can only come in to track their songs before the next guys are coming in. No time to experiment. It also meant that, whilst Cove was still finishing up vocals for the Saosin album, the next band’s piano and drums were getting set up in the tracking room. It ended up sounding great in the end, but maybe going somewhere with less strict time restraints could’ve meant the songs themselves may been even better.

That was far from the only issue to happen over the album. There was a bit of trouble regarding the album cover. Whilst Saosin would get the photographer they wanted with no issues, Capitol wanted to use a photo of the band for the cover, which the whole band strongly opposed. They point blank refused to bend on this, too. Eventually, Chris would even bypass the label and communicate directly with the photographer, and after being sent some photos of bugs, the band settled on the album cover they wanted. Naturally, Capitol were pissed that they had gone behind their backs for this, but ended up going with the beetle photo. This album cover is where it gets the name the album is commonly referred to by: the Beetle Album.

The next time they would hit the road would be for Warped Tour. Their third summer in a row on the tour, Saosin were more than familiar with this circus than a lot of bands. However, that wasn’t the only circus they had to be concerned with. Capitol Records had their own ideas about the track listing of the album, which most of the band opposed. They had recorded thirteen songs, but only twelve would make the final cut. The majority of the band wanted Let Go Control on the album, but Capitol wanted Bury Your Head (Cove actually agreed with the label since he thought Bury Your Head would have a better live performance vocally than Let Go Control). Chris would spend the last two weeks of Warped Tour on the phone with the label, arguing. He and most of his bandmates did not want to put a song on the album that had already been out for a year and wanted Let Go Control, a newer yet-to-be released song, on the album. However, Capitol wanted Bury Your Head because people already knew and liked it. Eventually, the label would win and Bury Your Head would make the cut, while Let Go Control would be used as a bonus track.

They would start touring to promote the album before it was even out: the tour started in August, the album wasn’t released until September 17th. This leg of the tour would end at the end of September, and they would immediately jump on the Taste of Chaos tour for the second year in a row. The tour would go all over the world thus time around, from Australia to Europe. This would also be the band’s first time overseas, a big milestone for them. During this, they started their SaoTV online web-series, which was basically vlogging before vlogging was a thing. Taste of Chaos was over by mid-November, and they would once again go straight back on the road— this time for the second leg of their tour promoting the Beetle Album. Clearly no one had told them they could take a break for longer than two weeks, because that’s all the time they took off at Christmas before continuing the tour in 2007.

In February, Saosin were back on Taste of Chaos in North America. As if they needed to do another North American tour after spending months going around the continent on their own. Again, this leg would end and they’d once again continue touring the continent, this time hitting a few festivals as well. They’d make their way back over to Europe in late April for a couple of weeks for their first headlining tour there. This would then be immediately followed by their a short run in Japan and Australia before returning to Europe for a few more festivals, like Download in England and Rock am Ring in Germany. Finally, there would be another two week break before jumping back on the road for a couple of weeks before Projekt Revolution that summer. Judging by the SaoTV episodes on their YouTube, this tour was just as much fun for the band as it was for the fans. Episodes featured members of the Bled, who they had known for years. In fact, they had known half the lineup for quite a while, so there hardly could’ve been a dull moment.

Saosin would then take almost the entire month of September off (the longest break they had probably ever had up until this point). Again, they continued to tour in North America. In November, they would record their show at the Fillmore in Philadelphia, which would be released as a live CD/DVD on March 11th the following year. This would be the band’s first release under Virgin after it bought out and merged with Capitol. 2008 would see a much lighter schedule, though, with them taking several months off at a time, with hardly any back-to-back shows. During these breaks, the band started to write more songs, with the Grey EP being released on October 14th, 2008. This would be followed by an extended break from touring to record their next album, In Search of Solid Ground.

2009-2010

The writing and recording process for In Search of Solid Ground differed quite a bit from the Beetle Album. For one, there were several producers involved: Beau got to track some of the songs, but shared duties with people like Butch Walker and John Feldmann. Other people were also brought in to help write songs. That’s why, if you have the album on CD, the songwriting credits look the way that they do. These songwriting credits also became a point on tension in the band. Justin allegedly wrote all the instrumental parts of one of the songs, which appeared on the album without a single bar being changed, but did not receive any sort of credit for this. Why? Because someone helped Cove write the vocal stuff for the song. It all seems to have been getting a bit messy.

The band would continue to tour on their new album, even as new tensions arose. During the PacSun tour, they held a band meeting in which someone made some particularly mean comments about Cove— his singing and performance on stage once again being picked at. While there was some truth in these comments (his singing had gotten worse when compared to the last album cycle), it still would’ve hurt to hear coming from one of your own bandmates. And, to make matters worse, none of the rest of them stood up for him and stayed silent. This was a pretty clear signal that they agreed with the comments made, even if they didn’t actually say anything themselves. With incidents like this, it was only really a matter of time before something happened as a result of the ongoing issues.

Saosin returned to Australia in 2010. Unknowingly, this would end up being their last tour for four years. The last show of this tour would be in Perth, on June 27th— coincidentally seven years to the day of the release of Translating the Name. After the tour, Cove would leave the band, and then they would be dropped by their label. With no singer and no record label, the band would go largely silent.

2011-2013

During this break, the Saosin guys would get up to all sorts. Beau would continue producing albums, Justin would focus on giving guitar lessons and helping out at Suhr, while Alex and Chris were doing, well, whatever they were doing (and posting weird shit on Instagram). For a few years there were no signs of the band ever really doing anything again, but as always, the rumour mill was working overtime.

In the earlier years of the hiatus, there rumours about potential new singers. These never went further than rumours as the band still remained very much inactive.

There was, though, another rumour— that Anthony wanted back in the band. This had sort of been going around for a few years by this point, but with Cove gone, it really started to pick up. This was helped by Anthony playing an acoustic version of Seven Years with Justin and Beau at one of his solo shows. With this, it was starting to look like Anthony could actually return to Saosin after a decade. And, when they finally announced they were touring again, it was with him as their singer.

2014-2015

In these early days of their comeback of sorts, there was already interest being shown by record labels. In particular Epitaph, who had their people go out to shows in California. There were talks of a record deal right from the beginning, but the band would put this off for a few years. They would, of course go with Epitaph eventually anyway, but they clearly felt it wasn’t the right time to be signing record deals when they had barely started touring again.

As they had no record deal, they essentially had to build everything back from the ground up. And that included how they toured. Before the hiatus, Saosin had been touring in buses for quite a few years— now, they were back in a van. This would’ve taken some getting used to, as there is nothing comfortable about sleeping in a van for weeks on end with several other guys taking up space.

While they all knew that there was an audience waiting for them, the reaction and subsequent energy at the first shows was something that couldn’t quite be predicted. After five years of silence, you could never truly guarantee how many people would still care— as it turns out, a lot of people still did. One of the most shocking moments came from the first run of shows was Cove showing up at the gig in San Diego. It really hammers home that he was a fan of the band first, before he was ever their singer. Someone managed to record what happened when the band spotted him in the crowd, and it seems that any tensions that were once there were long gone by this point. They had already began writing new material, too, and would play some of it live to help fill out a full setlist.

Around this time, The Used were looking for a guitarist to fill in while Quinn Allman took a temporary hiatus. Justin ended up interested in the job, and ended up getting it. Beau was The Used’s monitor guy at the time for shows and rehearsals, so was there throughout this whole process and was supportive of the decision. After six months, Justin’s role with the band became permanent. The Used’s touring schedule was (and still is, to be honest) done in blocks: they would do a chunk of shows and then take a break for just as long, if not longer. The chances of this ever majorly interfering with Saosin were quite low, especially considering the plans at the time. According to Justin, the original intent for Saosin after recording was to release the album and then do a few weeks of touring to support it.

This is where things start to become a bit grey. Justin has claimed in the past that after his job with The Used became permanent, there was a change of vibes in the Saosin camp. This apparently culminated in him being asked to sign a power of attorney so that the band could sign their record deal with Epitaph while The Used were on tour in Asia. This seems like a bit of a weird situation, according to Justin, they had waited a few years by now to sign the deal, so waiting a few more weeks for him to get home from tour should’ve been nothing. Naturally, he wanted to wait to sign the deal until he got back from tour, and told them so, but received a call a few days later apparently telling him they would be going ahead without him.

2016-present

With Justin now out of the band (regardless of what the truth surrounding the causes are), they had to rewrite parts of the songs that he contributed to. The rest of the recording process seems to have gone relatively smoothly, with Anthony recording with Will Yip in Philadelphia while the rest of the band did so with Beau in California. The album, Along the Shadow, would be released on May 20th, 2016. To fill the gap left by Justin, Phil Sgrosso of As I Lay Dying would be recruited as a permanent touring member of the band. They would tour for the first time in years outside of North America to promote the album, hitting the European festival circuit in 2016, in addition to some extra non-festival gigs across the continent.

After the main run of shows promoting Along the Shadow ended, Saosin would continue to play odd gigs, mainly around Southern California, where most of the band lived. These included the Glasshouse gigs in December 2018. Earlier that year, Cove had formed a new band called Dead American and had released their first EP, The Shape of Punk is Dumb. Dead American would open for Saosin at these gigs, and, in a surprise turn of events, Cove would get up on stage with Saosin to perform You’re Not Alone and Seven Years. These songs were live-streamed from Dead American’s Instagram account, meaning anyone who was awake at the time could see it in real time. It was the first time they had played You’re Not Alone since 2010, and the song would be featured in subsequent setlists. Beau would begin posting pictures and videos in the studio with Chris and Alex, teasing another Saosin album.

After completing their South American tour in 2019, the band would appear to take another break, at least from touring. Over the next few years, studio versions of I Can Tell… and Mookie’s Last Christmas would finally be released, over fifteen years on from their live debuts. This period of inactivity would be ended up their performance at When We Were Young in October 2022, and they would carry on to tour Australia and the United States the following year. In a puzzling turn of events, Cove would take over vocal duties for the Asia tour in late 2023. Saosin have stuck with Cove ever since, completing (another) USA tour, this time with him. It sounds like their plans for the future include him, too, as they have announced a new album will be coming at some point, with their aim to have at least some new music out by the end of 2024. They have also mentioned a Beetle Album re-recording, which will obviously feature Cove. With all these plans, it sounds like Saosin will become much more active in the near future than they have been the last couple of years— something that will be very much welcomed.