factor-4

Well where to start. Factor-4 from Dyer, IN: One of Northwest Indiana's original punk bands. Now Let's go back to 1995. After the final break up of Catch-22 following The Rink show (which ended in a riot with the Merrillville Police Department) Factor-4 was born. Originally the band started off as a 3 piece with James Sullivan on guitar, Chuck Canty on Bass, and Jason Ponozzo on drums. The mission statement of the band was to re-invent themselves as musicians and to create something totally t...

Well where to start. Factor-4 from Dyer, IN: One of Northwest Indiana's original punk bands. Now Let's go back to 1995. After the final break up of Catch-22 following The Rink show (which ended in a riot with the Merrillville Police Department) Factor-4 was born. Originally the band started off as a 3 piece with James Sullivan on guitar, Chuck Canty on Bass, and Jason Ponozzo on drums. The mission statement of the band was to re-invent themselves as musicians and to create something totally the opposite of Catch-22. After playing a few small underground shows Dan Martinez had joined the band as the vocalist. Heavily influenced by Crass the band took on a very political tone. Factor-4 played one performance with Dan at The Church in Chesterton with The Ecclectics and Race Car. It was obvious that the direction of the core players was differant than Dan's vision. The band started experimenting with having Chuck and Jason trading off on vocals. Jason was already established as the new vocalist for the Crown Point band The Ruffians. Soon After Jason dropped out of Factor-4 to do The Ruffians full time. Chuck had went over to go SK-8ing with JJ Sowa and basically said to him, "Your in the band we got a show in 2 days." JJ had the reputation as being a drum prodigy for only being 14 years old. Chris Williams took over as the bands singer for one performance back at The Church in Chesterton. Another Eric Wilson show. Although Chris's singing career was short lived he remained an integral part of the band playing late night sessions as a fill in drummer for JJ. Soon Chuck was on his feet to sing and play lead bass. Factor-4, The Ruffians, and Attica performed at the infamous American Legion show in Crown Point, IN. The show erupted into the biggest Punk Rock riot in NWI history. Hundreds of kids keying cop cars, throwing rocks, bottles, and punches at the Lake County,Crown Point, Merrillville and Schererville Police. Over $1,000.00 worth of damage was done to the hall. Strangley enough Factor-4's sound was more classic than hardcore. However riots and show violence seemed to haunt the band when they played live. Show after show continued until the one day Chuck announced that he had enlisted into the Navy. Factor-4 performed it's last show at The CrossRoads (Glenn Bricker Theater) in Merrillville in February of 1997. JJ decided to focus on college, and Chris took on the drums (Fwied Wice, The O'Hares, Lunar Attempt etc.). James continued in an array of differant musical projects (The Sleepwalkers, The Wanderers, The Drubins, etc.) and Chuck continued to play in San Diego and OKC (The Flip Side, Flicker Vertigo, Drum Fire etc.) It would seem that the boys would never cross paths again.. Now more than 10 Years later Chuck has returned area. James and Chuck have reformed the band to play out live once again. JJ played the first re-union show in Chicago, but bowed out to finish school. Chris picked up where JJ left off and has continued to rock out with the band over the last year. Jason Panozzo has returned to do Factor-4 full time so that Chris can attend to personal affairs and the new impending addition to his family. It is pretty excititng that all of the major players within the band will have an opportunitty to play out once again together. If you missed out on the good times before here is your chance to partake in the Warsaw inspired circus that is Factor-4.