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The band was formed under the name of A-180 by Mark Stuart, Barry Blair and Will McGinnissDavid Stuart. (As of 2007, Stuart and McGinniss are the only remaining original members.) The three men, along with Ron Gibson and Mark's brother, David, became a popular local band—booked by the school nearly every weekend.
The band's big break would come in the form of Bob Herdman. Bob went up to Audio Adrenaline with two songs he had written, "My God" and "DC-10". After "My God" was recorded—under the band name Herdman had created, "Audio Adrenaline"—it was sent to radio stations and scaled the charts quickly. Forefront Records decided to offer a record deal to A-180 but had them change their name to Audio Adrenaline. The name had come from a day when the band was blaring music loudly in their dorm. A member then said that it felt like audio adrenaline. Bob joined the band, and David left to focus on his family.
[edit] 1990s
Their first album under Forefront, the self-titled Audio Adrenaline, was released in 1992. The follow-up album, Don't Censor Me, came the next year. In 1996, their third album, bloom, was released. It marked guitarist Barry Blair's final album with the band.
With Blair gone, Audio Adrenaline needed a new guitarist. They found one in Tyler Burkum, who joined the band at only 17 years old, in time to record 1997's Some Kind of Zombie. This was also the first album to feature Ben Cissell as the band's full-time drummer, though Cissell had played on bloom as well. In 1999, the band released Underdog, its fifth studio album. To this day, Underdog remains Audio Adrenaline's largest critical success.[citation needed]
[edit] 2000s
Audio Adrenaline greeted the new millennium by releasing their first greatest hits compilation, Hit Parade, in 2001. In the winter of that same year, they released a new studio album, Lift. In the time between the releases of those two albums, Bob Herdman left the band to become president of a new record label, Flicker Records, which he founded along with Stuart and McGinniss. In 2003, the band released its ninth album, Worldwide. It was a more worship-based effort that emphasized their style of ministry and love of mission trips. The band's "Hands and Feet Project" and "The Go Show" tour also served to encourage missionary work. Worldwide, like Lift before it, wasn't as 'rocking' in the traditional sense as their previous efforts, mostly because of the focus on softer and more praise-oriented material. In 2004, the band, along with former member Bob Herdman, founded a project in Haiti called the Hands and Feet Project, in which the band built an orphanage for children.
The band's tenth album, Until My Heart Caves In, was released on August 30, 2005. It received a Grammy for Best Rock Gospel Album in 2006.
Among Audio Adrenaline's most notable performances are three of their most popular songs, "Big House", "Hands and Feet", and the live staple "We're A Band", as well as a duet with The O.C. Supertones, "Blitz", from the album Some Kind of Zombie.
On January 18, 2006, Audio Adrenaline announced that they were retiring. The band cited Mark Stuart's "ongoing vocal challenges" stemming from vocal chord damage after years of performing as the primary factor.[1] On July 27, 2006, the band played at the popular Christian music festival Creation West for the last time. They had performed at Creation West every year since it began. On August 1, 2006, they released their final album, Adios, a farewell album containing two new tracks as well as the band's greatest hits. For their final national tour in February until April 2007, Audio Adrenaline opened for MercyMe on the "Coming Up To Breathe Tour".
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