Disruptive Influence

About Disruptive Influence

Disruptive Influence is a Pasadena, California-based hardcore punk band that has been in existence since the early 1980s. The current members include Jason Waterman, Joe Gutierrez, Mike Kenny and Mark Cole.

The band originally started out as PLAG (pronounced “plague”) in
1980. The
PLAG consisted of Jim Seely on Bass, Mel Weaver on vocals, Joe Gutierrez on
guitar and Mike Kenny on drums. The band's first show was at the Little Theatre opening for Christian
Death, Red Brigade, the Decadents and Manson Youth. Then disaster struck, as the lead singer got into a serious "car vs. moped" accident. This is where Jason Waterman enters the story. The punk rock gods in
Pasadena at that time were Grant Miner (of "Suburbia" fame), Mike “T-Head” Bautita and Jason
Waterman. The guys of PLAG asked Jason to learn all their songs and get ready for a big gig. Ed Colver shot the new band during their first performance. Right around this time, Mike T-Head gave the band a brand new name -- Disruptive Influence -- after explaining that he was kicked out of his boarding school for
being a “disruptive Influence.”  The bassist Jim had to quit the band, so the band recruited Mark Cole (formerly of Manson Youth). Disruptive Influence played the Arts Building, the Ritz in Riverside,
Godzilla’s and several other hardcore punk venues. The band was featured and/or reviewed in Flipside, We Got Power,
LA Weekly and more. 

Cut to this century. It’s 2015, and Joe Gutierrez moves
back to Los Angeles from New York City after 25 years. One day, while perusing the We Got
Power book about the LA Hardcore scene at Rip City Skates in Santa Monica,
he happens upon some photos of the band hanging around back in the
day. His girlfriend then buys him a copy of Ed Colver’s photography book and ends up
bringing Joe to Ed’s house to get pick it up in person. Ed and Joe became
fast friends. From Ed’s front porch, the two discovered that there were dozens
of old Ed Colver photos of the PLAG and Disruptive Influence in his archives.
Joe and Ed took to the interwebs and found old flyers, blog postings and 1980s
press about the band. Joe began his mission to track down the original band
members to share all of the content he’d discovered. The guys uncovered a PLAG Memorex tape
recording -- one of only two original demos from 34 years prior. The music on the tape was quickly mastered and digitized. Soon After, Joe reconnected with Mike K., Jason, Mel and Mark Cole. The band started playing and re-recording again at
FK Studios in Monrovia, California in the Spring of 2015.  The rest is history!