Suck is an all girl rock/pop/punk from Columbia, South Carolina. The band was first formed in 1999 when Tric Klitsch met Patti Davis at a show where Davis's band, Sixtensplit, was playing. The two were discussing all girl bands and the scarcity of female musicians in punk and rock music in their area, so they decided to do something about it and start and all girl band. They searched for other female musicians to jam with and met Wendy Schneider. Schneider had never played in a band before but she expressed a strong desire to learn, so Klitsch and Davis taught her how to play the bass. Schneider displayed amazing untapped talent and picked up the bass quickly. After being unable to find a female drummer, Davis volunteered to play them. She already knew the basics of the drums but lacked experience. They then recruited Susan Morgalis on guitar. The band's initial sound was punk mixed with dark gothic undertones. Klitsch's rich melodic voice was ocaisionally punctuated with hardcore vocals.
Halloween was approaching and Klitsch wanted to play their first show on that day. Even though they didn't feel like they were quite ready to play in front of anyone yet, the band decided to play their first show anyway. No one would book them, so they set up a show at their practice space, bribing other bands to play as well with free beer.
They needed a name for the band and Davis jokingly suggested that they call themselves “Suck”. “That way, she explained, “if anyone says we suck, we can say... well what did you expect?” The name was supposed to be temporary until they found a better one, but the idea of the name sort of started taking on a persona of it's own.
Since it was Halloween, the band decided to dress up and Davis volunteered to sew the band's first costumes. The band decided that if the Spice Girls had spice names, then the suck girls needed suck names. Klitsch decided to call herself “Vivasuction” after her interest in horror movies and forensic mystery novels. Davis decided to call herself “Succatash” because it was the first suck word she thought of and it seemed like a good excuse to wear a cowboy hat. Schneider chose “Sukiyaki” because of her love for Sushi. Morgalis chose “Succubus”.
The first show turned out to be entertaining. The bands set up in the middle of the parking lot at the practice space and Jay Matheson provided the stage lighting by shining the headlights of his 1959 Ford Galaxie Skyliner. The car was later featured in the first promo shots for the band.
That Christmas, Morgalis moved away and was replaced on guitar by Marty Dunn aka Honeysuckle.
The band then recorded their first demo featuring the songs “She Screams”, “For Joshua” and “Intergalactic Cowboy”. Suck also filmed a music video for the song “Intergalactic Cowboy”. The costumes continued to evolve as the band took on different themes such as catholic schoolgirls and “hell's cheerleaders” costumes. Shorty after the release of their video, Klitsch moved away and was replaced by Whitney Spears on vocals.
With the replacement of Klitsch, the band lost it's gothic influence. The new songs took on more of a pop/punk/rock sound as heard on the recorded an EP featuring the songs, “The Ballad of Snowy Brown”, “Bricktown Kids”, “F 69”, “Hot Spotlight” and “Take You Out”. The EP was never ofically released as Spears left the band.
After Spear's departure, the band decided to remain a 3 piece with members Davis, Schneider and Dunn all switching instruments and taking turns singing lead vocals with lots of backup harmonies. Davis and Dunn would alternate playing guitar while all 3 members switched off playing drums and bass. As a three piece, the band's sound once again shifted and they had more of a punk rock sound.
Suck then recorded a self titled EP featuring the songs “What Happened Last Night”, “Boy on Ice”, “Hard Day”, “That Kinda Girl”, “Mamacita”, and a rerecording of “Bricktown Kids”.
Next Suck recorded an album titled “This” with the songs “Girls Gone Wild”, “You Are Here”, “Gravity”, “Jukebox”, “Sure Enough”, “Too Late”, “Wide Awake”, and “Radio”.
Suck disbanded in 2005 after Davis dislocated her shoulder and had to take time off from playing drums so that it could heal. Dunn was also returning to school and Schneider was just starting a full time job.
Suck is planning a reunion hopefully sometime in the near future.