Finger Eleven

1. The band is from Burlington, Ontario, a city of about 150,000 on Lake Ontario about 30 miles west of Toronto and 70 miles from Buffalo.

2. Most of the members have known each other since high school. Although they don’t like to talk about it, two of the guys (we’ll let you guess which two) didn’t get along back then and there were some playground brawls. But all is now forgiven.

3. James has conceived every Finger Eleven record cover and layout to date. The new artwork was pieced together with digital photos taken over the course of the band’s writing period (nearly two years).

4. The guys have played their share of covers over the years. The list ranges from Frank Black and Bad Religion to Depeche Mode (“Walking In My Shoes” remains a fave).

5. Finger Eleven issued their first record entitled Tip in 1997 (complete with the single and video, “Above”). America got the album the following September but with a couple of changes. For example, the song Canadians know as “Consolation Day” was re-titled and re-recorded as “Awake and Dreaming.”

6. The second Finger Eleven album, The Greyest of Blue Skies, was released in July 2000. It featured the big Finger Eleven song, “Drag You Down.” It was produced by Arnold Lanni, a guy best known for his work with Our Lady Peace.

7. Finger Eleven’s “Sad Exchange” appears on Daredevil: The Album.

8. There has only been one line-up change in the group’s history. Rich replaced Rob Gommerman on drums in 1998.

9. The band gets support from a network of street teams, groups of hardcore fans that do their best to promote Finger Eleven however they can. These fabulous fans are rewarded with things like sound-check parties.

10. Finger Eleven was chosen to tour Canada with Ozzy Osbourne and Voivod in 2003.

11. Finger Eleven keeps fastidious records of everything they do and everything that’s written about them along with tour diaries, audio, video and even examples of James’ artwork.