Balloon Animal (band)

Balloon Animal is an american-australian rock band, formed in Denver, Colorado in 2000. The band's founders were Patrick Star, Fred Rechid and Eugene Krabs. The band became popular from their rock-australian beats in the mid 2000's, only at the age of 19 for each member at the time. Fred Rechid would later leave the band in 2008 after kicking out Eugene Krabs, replacing him with Pat Donovan and renaming the band 'Balloon', after that the band name would change to it's most-known 'Balloon Animal' name and Eugene Krabs would join back along with friend Scooter Treggs.
==History==
===Formation, Early Years and First Album (1999-2005)===
Originally founded by Patrick Star, Fred Rechid and Eugene Krabs at the age of 13 in Middle School, under the name Colorockers, in Denver, Colorado. They played a few shows with covers of songs from the Pixies, Green Day, Ween, Meat Puppets, Elliott Smith and The Infection. The band would later retitle themselves to Balloon and begin writing original songs and such. Patrick Star grew up in Australia and moved to America in 1996 at the age of 10, and met new found friends, Fred Rechid and Eugene Krabs.
In 2001 the group (at the age of 15) signed to the group, Grass, and begin work on their first EP titled 'We Need Money', in the same timeframe they played the infamous "Live at the Bar 2001" show at The Abbey Tavern. They start a 2002 "We Need Money Tour" for the EP while recording tracks for their debut album, which they'd focus much of 2003 on, and in 2004, their debut album would release at No. 5 on the Billboard 100 on March 5th. For much of 2005 the band would embark on a tour for the album, then would take a break for the last quarter of the year.
===Balloon, The Fred Rechid Years and Second Album (2006-08)===
The band renamed itself Balloon on April 1st, 2006, as many thought it was an april fools joke, it would not be, as well as Fred Rechid kicking out Eugene Krabs and bringing in Pat Donovan in his place as he slowly took over songwriting and overall composing for the next album the group would release, which would be "An All New Way to Rock" in which the fans would hate this album and less album sales and it would debut at No. 194 on the Billboard 100 on February 1st, 2007.
The group would embark on a 14 month tour for the album, which would later prove to be stressful under Rechid's higher and higher demands. In April, he would be ousted from the group and later form his own rock band "Sneeze Mark" which would later disband in 2010. Eugene Krabs would rejoin the group a month after, along with friend Scooter Treggs, while Pat Donovan would later take over the rhythm guitar duties on future albums.
===Balloon Animal and New Members (2008-09)===
The band would later retitle to Balloon Animal and keep the name for years to come in July 2008. They would begin work on the 20-track album "Continental Drift" that same time, as well as being the first album with Eugene Krabs on lead guitars since their debut album, and the very first album for Scooter Treggs. During this time the band would perform at various bands around Denver and Colorado promoting the new line-up. Pat Donovan would later leave the band to go and perform a duo with Fred Rechid in the next year.
===Another New Member, Third and Fourth Albums (2010-14)===
SpongeBob SquarePants would join in to fill the place of Pat Donovan, who had unfinished guitar work on the album "Continental Drift", so this would be the only album with both of them credited. The record would prove to be successful as debuting on No. 1 on the Billboard 100 on August 21st, 2010. The group embarked on their first extended tour with an international branch in 2011, completing in October 2011.
The group would later take 2012 to work on their next album, a new more, Australian influenced album, "Mango", which would debut at No. 3 on the Billboard 100 on December 2nd, 2012. This would later be the last album with SpongeBob as the rhythm guitarist, as the band would later take a dark turn...
The band embarked on a 14-month tour for Mango, but the tour was later cut down from 18 months as Patrick would get a divorce and the band members would become distant in early 2014, and later break up in May of the same year.
===Fallout, Semi-Break-Up, and Too Epic to Die (2014-17)===
During the fallout/break-up, Patrick, Eugene, Fred Rechid and Pat's younger brother, Chet, would embark on a small 4-month tour from September to October 2015, and then again in January to March 2016 to promote 'We Need Money's 15th Anniversary. These would be the only performances with this form of the group as Fred would later leave once the band reconciled in mid 2016. The band would pop up at various bars in Colorado to play with the line-up of Patrick, Eugene, Scooter, and Chet. Pat was working on a solo-album at the time and later would return to his rhythm guitar position in September with the Reunion tour.
The band would later take 8 months off while the fans thought it was just a hiatus from the band, they were secretly working on the 5th album, "Too Epic to Die", which would debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 100 on July 23rd, 2017. They would later embark on a 4-month tour to support the release, along with a 3-month international extension.
===Biopic, Down Under and Pen and Paper (2017-present)===
It was announced in April 2018 that a Biopic on the group was in production entitled "Too Epic to Die: The Balloon Animal Story" for release in December 2019 in theaters. All the band members would have input while the movie would be based on the band's history along with the book written by Eugene Krabs in 2017 entitled "Balloon Animal: How We Popped."
Around this time the band was also working on an upcoming album "Down Under", which would be released 7 months later on November 6th, 2018, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 100 that week. The band would embark on the first tour without an extension labelled 'Around the World', instead, that extension would be under the normal banner. The tour ended in mid-May. In October of that same year they announced their upcoming album began sessions in August, and the title was "Pen and Paper", it would be titled that as founding member Fred Rechid was found dead in September that same year, and the album would be dedicated in his memory. Fred's final album was released on the 25th of October, with 50% of the earnings made by the record going to NAMI.
==Tours==
===As Colorockers (1999)===
* Colorockers Tour
** April 25th - October 8th, 1999
===As The Balloons (2000-06)===
* We Need Money Tour
** February 9th - December 2nd, 2002
* Lazy Balloon Tour
** March 10th, 2004 - September 26th, 2005
===As Balloon (2006-08)===
* Vans Warped Tour 2006
** June 30th - August 8th, 2006
* An All New Way to Rock Tour
** January 5th, 2007 - March 31st, 2008
===As Balloon Animal (2008-present)===
* Continental Shift Tour
** August 28th, 2010 - April 5th, 2011
* Continental Shift Around the World Tour
** April 12th - October 1st, 2011
* Mango Tour
** December 5th, 2012 - August 21st, 2013
* Mango Around the World Tour
** August 31st, 2013 - February 14th, 2014 (Additional 2014 Dates Cancelled)
* We Need Money 15th Anniversary Tour
** September 1st - October 22nd, 2015
* We Need Money 15th Anniversary Around the World Tour
** January 2nd - March 20th, 2016
* Reunion Tour
** September 20th - December 5th, 2016
* Too Epic to Die Tour
** August 4th - December 11th, 2017
* Too Epic to Die Around the World Tour
** January 7th - March 21st, 2018
* Down Under Tour
** November 11th, 2018 - May 15, 2019 [First tour without an "around the world" labelled extension, instead the extension will last through June with around the world shows]
==Band Members==
===Current===
* Patrick Star - Lead Vocals, Percussion/Drums (2000-present)
* Eugene Krabs - Lead Guitars (2000-06; 2008-present)
* Pat Donovan - Lead Guitars (2006-08), Rhythm Guitar (2008-10; 2016-present)
* Scooter Treggs - Backup Vocals, Bass Guitar (2008-14; 2016-present)
===Former===
* Fred Rechid † - Backup Vocals, Bass Guitar (2000-08; 2015-16)
* SpongeBob SquarePants - Rhythm Guitar (2010-15)
===Touring===
* Steve Dunn - Additional Percussion, Keyboards (2006-14; 2016-present)
* Chet Donovan - Rhythm Guitar (2015-16)
==Discography==
===Studio Albums===
* We Need Money (EP) (2001)
* Lazy Balloon (2004)
* An All New Way to Rock (2007)
* Continental Shift (2010)
* Mango (2012)
* Too Epic to Die (2017)
* Down Under (2018)
* Pen and Paper (2020)
===Compilation Albums===
* The Best of Balloon (2008)
* Balloon Animal: Greatest Hits (2016)
===Rarities and Live Albums===
* Colorockers 1999 Demos (2001)
* Live at the Bar 2001 (2004)
* Lazy Balloon: Demos and Outtakes (2005)
* An All New Continental Shift: Demos and Outtakes (2011)
* Mango: Demos and Outtakes (2013)
* Live in New York 2014 (2016)
* Too Epic to Die: Demos and Outtakes (2018)
* Down Under: Demos and Outtakes (2019)
* Live in New Mexico 2019 (2019)
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