The Mr. T Experience
The Mr. T Experience (sometimes abbreviated MTX) is an American punk rock band formed in 1985 in Berkeley, California, United States. They have released eleven full-length albums along with numerous EPs and singles and have toured internationally. Their music is best classified as pop punk and is intentionally playful, comical, and satirical, often dealing with issues of love and relationships. The band's name is taken from actor and television personality Mr. T.
The Mr. T Experience
Berkeley, California, U.S.
1985–present
Lookout!, Disorder, Rough Trade, Sounds Rad Records
Dr. Frank
Ted Angel
Bobby Jordan
Jaz Brown
Byron Stamatatos
Jon Von Zelowitz
Aaron Rubin
Alex Laipeneiks
Joel Reader
J Phillips
Gabe Meline
Jim "Jym" Pittman
The Mr. T Experience serves mainly as the creative outlet for singer/guitarist Frank Portman, the primary songwriter and sole continuous member throughout multiple lineup changes. The band is closely associated with the Berkeley and greater San Francisco Bay Area punk rock movement of the late 1980s and the 1990s, revolving around the 924 Gilman Street venue and the Lookout! Records label, through which they have released all of their albums since 1990.
MTX are contemporaries of numerous other groups who emerged from this same scene, including Green Day, Operation Ivy, Rancid, Jawbreaker, The Donnas, Tilt, and NOFX. They also share stylistic similarities with other bands not native to the Bay area but closely associated with this movement, including The Queers, Screeching Weasel, and the Groovie Ghoulies. Over the years the Mr. T Experience has performed, toured, and shared a record label with many of these bands.
Band history[edit]
1985-1989: Formation[edit]
Prior to forming The Mr. T Experience, members Frank Portman and Byron Stamatatos had played together in a band called the Bent Nails while in high school in Millbrae, California. The two kept in touch after Portman moved to Berkeley to attend the University of California, Berkeley, where he met Jon Von Zelowitz who was a fellow DJ at the university's radio station KALX. He was also introduced to Alex Laipeneiks, who had been a high school friend of Portman's younger brother. In the summer of 1985 the four formed The Mr. T Experience with Portman on guitar and vocals (under the pseudonym Dr. Frank), Zelowitz on guitar and vocals, Stamatatos on bass, and Laipeneiks on drums.
The band's name was chosen on a whim, "a kinda accidental thing,"[1] Portman recalled in a 1995 interview:
Current
Past
Timeline