Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
PART 1
The history of OverRated is a long and very twisted road. This twisted road may not always be the absolute truth but it comes close. Heck, this was all done in the name of fun anyway. As you might already know, OverRated has three members that were originally member of another Flint area rock band, 3rd World Powers. 3rd World Powers was loved and embraced by several tens of people. They were on the rise to superstardom until a couple of members got way too greedy, this is what happened.
Actual Transcript
(May not be actual transcript)
Russell: Come on you two! Quit stealing money from my mom!
Derek: What are you talking about? (Slipping two 100 dollar bills into his pocket)
Dustin: (Wearing a mink fur coat and looking at a new diamond studded ROLEX) We're not stealing any money from your mom.
Batey: Then where did you get all the money for that expensive stuff?
Derek: Our Gigs!
Zafiroff: What Gigs?
Dustin: Don't you remember, we played to a sold out crowd at the Silverdome!
Russell: (Sarcasticly) Oh right, I remember.
Derek: See! Russell gets it!
Batey: That was sarcasim, even I noticed that, and I suck at detecting subtle little quirks.
Dustin: OH! That must have been the night that you guys took all of that LSD. We told you that stuff would damage your memory.
Zafiroff: Can we knock this off and get to practicing?
Derek and Dustin: Nope. (Then Derek grabs Russell's Mom's purse and Dustin grabs Smokey the Cat and both leave.)
(Russell, Batey and Zafiroff all look at each other and shake their heads.)
Post Note: It was reported that minutes later there was a horrible car accident involving a psycho cat and two high school students. Fortunately, only minor cat bites and scratches were inflicted. However, they were still kept in the hospital overnight for percaution and Smokey is still on the loose.
3rd World Powers never did break up, but they are currently on a very long break from doing anything as a group that would resemble playing music. The history of OverRated really started with Mike Zafiroff, when he and his friend Will started a band their sophmore year.
Mike Zafiroff: Oh yeah, I'm very proud of starting this phenoman. Will Garcia and I started a band, I played drums and he played guitar. For the lack of a better name, we called the band Screaming Silent. But, all we did is come up with several riffs but didn't take the time to turn any into songs. Yes, it seemed the world was against us, but that would soon change.
And how right he was. Not more then a couple of months later came a sence of direction for the young musicians. This direction came in the form of musical prodigy, Russell Sanborn. It turned out that he was the perfect person to get Zafiroff and Garcia on the right track.
Russell Sanborn: It was wild. I went over to la casa del Zafiroff one day and he and Will were playing music, if you wanna call it that, then Will asked me to play a beat on the drums So went over to the set and I got behind the drums and started playing. Will started playing a riff, the riff that was the base of our musical creativity from there on out. I played along and then out of nowhere I screamed: "Hey There Mr. Cow, What'cha Thinking anyhow."
Those few words sparked and fueled all the events to come. This song was then aptly deemed Mr. Cow. It had a powerful but repeditive riff and a set of strange lyrics. After that, the sky was the limit for Screaming Silent, or was the sky just a little too high for them to reach. With three new musicans binding together to from a band none were quite talented enough to play and sing at the same time. They wrote several more songs but they didn't have anyone to sing them. They had several ideas to solve this problem, but weren't quite sure with path to take.
Mike Zafiroff: We Really weren't sure what path to take. After Mr. Cow and the push it provided, the only thing that was really stopping us from becoming a real band was the undenyable fact that we had no lead singer. We had 4 options:
1. I could be the singer, but it is harder then rock to sing a song and drum at the same time.
2. We could have had Russell sing who had recently bought a bass guitar, but he sounds like a cat under a semi tire.
3. Have Will sing but he really couldn't play and sing at the same time or...
4. Bring in a new lead singer.
We had 4 decent songs at that time, Mr. Cow, The 50's Song, Michael Meyers song, and an un-named song with poorly written lyrics. Inevidibly we wisely chose to go with a number 4 with fries and a coke.
Derek Stogner:I WAS EXTATIC WHEN THE GUYS ASKED ME TO SING. I PRACTICED MY JAMES HETFIELD GROWL FOR WEEKS.
BTM: Derek please take the mic away from your face.
Derek Stogner:NO!
BTM:Well don't expect another interview with us for a long time.
Derek Stogner: FINE BY ME.
Ok. Well, ironiclly, the coke turned out to be the bigger hit then the burger. It's amazing that sometimes you just aren't hungry but you're extremely thirsty. And the people were thirsty but would their taste change again.
Mike Batey:That's a really cute analogy, the Value Meal thing. Who writes this stuff? I guess I was the coke. When Russell and Mike brought in Derek Stogner to sing lead vocals for 3WP, Dustin (The Fries) Johnston, joined him to play lead guitar in the band and have Garcia play Rhythm. I don't really know what I was doing, but I didn't have anything better to do so I joined them to watch and take pictures for pubplicity and what not. I also mowed their lawns and cleaned their pools but I guess that's the price you pay for superstardom.
Soon after the 5 formed the regular band, there was a conflict over what the name of the band was going to be. Neither Stogner, Johnston or Sanborn really cared for the name Screaming Silent. The wind of change was blowing and someone was going to have to fly a kite and fast.
Russell Sanborn: What?!? I don't get it. Anyway, at school one day we were trying to come up with a name for the new band. During first hour, Honors Chemistry, we came up with "Pyro Metal Urgie"(a chemistry term, look it up for extra Behind the Music Bonus Points), as the day progressed "Urgie" became "Urgies" which brought forth "Urges". So after that, we were Pyro Metal Urges. I think that lasted till about lunch when it was suggested that we change the "Urges" to "Underground". So after lunch we were Pyro Metal Underground. That actully lasted the rest of the day. The next day I asked the rest of the band what they really thought of the name, and they hated it. Finally I said, "What about 'Big Red Army'?" and they hated it even more. Then I asked "What about '3rd World Powers'?" They reluctantly agreed and the name stuck.
With the band now having a name to call it's self by, it was very obvious that only good things would come. It was in that same week that perhaps the best loved song that 3rd World Powers played was born. Mike Batey explains the first song he ever wrote.
Mike Batey:Well, it was that faithful day in Spanish 2, when I came up with the riff and chorus for We Got A Nuke. I'm a huge Ultimate Warrior fan, same as Russell, and I was wondering if we could make a song out of his theme. So in the middle of class, I was like (Hums Ultimate Warriors music) WE GOT A NUKE. Uh, USING A NUKE! It ain't a FLUKE! WE GO A NUKE. Russell then informed me that he could do that tune on the bass and "We Gotta Nuke" was born. However, it took weeks of painstaking work to come up with the rest of it but that's not really an entertaining story.
Third World Powers was on a fast track to sucess as Johnston Wrote a very likeable riff that turned into an execellent song called Tribulation. They got Mr. Cow and We Got A Nuke finished and also started working on CSS and prefecting The Michael Meyers song when tragedy hit.
Mike Zafiroff: Well, it was one day during practice that Will didn't show up. We tried to call him and he said, "I don't think I'm going to go to practice today." It hit us really hard and the whole band grieved over the loss of our rhythm guitarist. But that is one thing that we do not tolerate, and that is practice intolerence! So after he left, we got rid of the Michael Meyers song and our unfinished song because only Will could play them. But in the end, Will quitting made us stronger and gave us more defining roles. I took over as rhythm guitarist and Mike Batey took over the drums.
With Will gone and the band stronger than ever. It was appearent that the band 3rd World Powers would be able to stand strong in the hurricane that is called adversity. In the end that is what most of their songs were about, conquering adversity and what happens if people make bad decisions in life, either that or songs about being mad at a storm. Tribulation, It's Too Late, We Got A Nuke, Against The Wall, and even Mr. Cow all followed suit. It wasn't long before 3rd World Powers got it's first gig, even though it was for charity and they had to pay to get in.
Russell Sanborn: Our first gig as a band was playing at Kearsley High School for charity in an event called "Empty Bowls". It was a humbleing experience because we weren't really nailing anything expect Brain Stew, (The easiest cover song in the world), and while I was playing drums during JCHC, I lost one of my drumsticks and the set slowly kept moving away from me. However, the audience still said that they liked us, I'm not sure that it wasn't out of pity.However one painful realization came from the show, something had to be done about our vocals and soon.
In part II, 3rd World Powers try to deal with it's over viciousness, get 4th place in the talent show, get over "not practicing" and they make a sandwich.
VH1 Behind The Music
The OverRated Story
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