Zack Melvin

Zack Melvin (born John Zachary Melvin) is the frontman for the Seattle Punk band Ear-Rat-Tick. Melvin performs lead vocals and occasionally keyboard. He writes the majority of the band's lyrics.
==Early Life==
Zack Melvin was born John Zachary Melvin on May 2, 1982 to Gregory and Eileen Melvin in Aberdeen, Great Britain. Even as a young child, Melvin loved to sing. According to his grandmother, "Little Johnny was always singing. At first it was nursery rhymes, but as he got older and learned the piano, he would sing along while he played Let It Be or Bohemian Rhapsody. Even as a child, he had quite the knack for music." He began playing the piano at age 8 and listened to bands such as Black Sabbath, The Clash, Cream, and The Sex Pistols. Zack would often get into fights with peers and was thrown out of school in 1997 for truancy. 
==Teen Years==
After being expelled for truancy at his school in Aberdeen, the Melvins moved overseas to the United States when Zack Melvin was 15 years old. Originally moving to New York City, the Melvin family moved westward over the course of the next year due to young Zack constantly getting into trouble at school. At the age of 16, the Melvin family relocated itself in Seattle, Washington. During his first week at his new school, Zack was suspended for smoking on school grounds. While suspended, Zack decided to drop out and never returned to high school. Zack spent most of his free time listening to local performers and bands. At the age of 17, Zack's parents threatened to kick him out of the house if he didn't get a job. The following night Zack packed up his belongings and left, moving into a friend's attic. 
Zack joined a local band soon after. However, after a few months Zack left the band due to disagreement in musical tastes. Melvin states, "They'd start playing their gay (no offense, pal) crap, wanting me to start singing some pop garbage. (Do I have to say garbage, or can I say ****? I can't say ****? Okay then.) Anyways, they'd start on this emo-pop junk, and I'd just start going screamo to cheeze them off. Man, I mean, their style wasn't alternative rock, it was alternative to rock."
Zack drifted from band to band, never getting a real job, over the next three years. He was forced to move out of his friend's attic when his friend's mother discovered him smoking there one night, two months after Zack's friend has moved out.
==Musical History==
At the age of 17, Melvin joined the garage band Lemon Crust. The band played contemporary rock, Melvin comparing it to "poser pop-rock sprinkled with faerie dust, you bloody ******!" Melvin hated the band's style and would often disrupt practice by metal-screaming or reciting lyrics about death and sexual corruption. Melvin claims to have "left the band due to musical differences", but the Washington police records show that John Melvin was arrested in 1999 for trashing his bandmate's garage, spray-painting "FAERIE ROCK CAN SUCK MY C" on the garage door (Melvin was apprehended by police before he finished the vandalism), and resisting arrest.
Over the next three years, Melvin drifted among several bands, none of which reached major success.
==Musical Influences==
Ozzy Osbourne, The Ramones, Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Cream, Dio, The Clash
==Personal Life==
Melvin is often in the press, being quoted about topics he has little or no knowledge on. His comments are often controversial and usually offensive. Melvin has been accused on multiple occasions of being homophobic, but the musician states "No love, I have nothing against gays. Just because I like to use 'gay' as a derogatory term don't mean I hate no gays. Man, lighten up! I don't think no gays are gay, so bugger off now."
Category:Musicians
Category:British artists