Greenwheel

In 1999 a handful of high-school musicians from St. Charles, a suburb outside St. Louis, assembled at a neighborhood record shop and first called their project Hindsight before settling on the name Soma Holiday. Their independently issued, self-titled debut appeared that same year and stirred regional interest. Soon afterward the band largely withdrew, surfacing for only scattered performances. Frontman Ryan Jordan meanwhile imposed a one-year deadline for commercial progress; failure would send him back to community college and onward to DePaul University to study theater. By 2000 the group had adopted the name Greenwheel and issued a four-song demo. Appearances at showcases in New York City drew the interest of Island Records, which signed the act and dispatched it to Nashville to compose and track its next album. That album, Soma Holiday, reached stores in June 2002 on the Island label. Observers noted that the band’s live energy and pop/rock sound recalled the work of acts ranging from Train and Matchbox Twenty to Linkin Park.