Animal Bag

After some personnel changes, the band congealed around members Luke Edwards (vocals and guitar), Rich Parris (guitars and vocals), Otis Hughes (bass guitar), and Boo Duckworth (drums and percussion) in 1987. After building a following in their native North Carolina, the group relocated to Los Angeles in 1989. Favorable press in newspapers including the L.A. Music Scene, which compared them to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More, coupled with the exploding alternative music scene, brought the band to the attention of several A&R execs, and Animalbag was eventually signed to Mercury records in 1992. Their 1992 self-titled initial release mixed acoustic and electric rock and Animal Bag was prominently featured in the pilot episode of My So-Called Life as the party band. The album's first single, Everybody, peaked briefly at #29 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in 1993, and was a minor success in Japan, hitting #32 for 8 weeks in March 1993. Their follow-up 1994 album Offering was all-acoustic and did not chart well in the U.S. Mercury was willing to give the band one more chance, and brought in producer Terry Date to helm a return to harder-edged music for the band's 1996 album Image Damage. The album was never released because of inner shakeups at the record label; most of the people who had worked the first two Animal Bag releases left the label. By 1998, the band had broken up and singer Luke Edwards went on to form the bluegrass band Tater. On June 5, 2002, drummer Boo Duckworth died from natural causes at age 35. On March 9, 2010, lead guitarist Richard Parris passed away. According to the medical examiner, cause of death was a ruptured ulcer. Rich had just recorded an album with his band (with Otis from Animal Bag) M4 Messenger.