Logo #213: Ill Will

Sheldon Parker from Ill Will: "In 1980, three surfers from El Segundo went to see a movie called "Rock 'n' Roll High School." After seeing the movie and watching The Ramones, we decided that we could do that just for fun. The Ramones inspired us to start jamming just because it looked like a fun thing to do. We started a band called The Haters. We called ourselves that because we hated just about everything that was popular at the time; we hated disco, condominiums, glam, and especially non-local surfers. We played Ramones songs and a few originals. The originals were mostly about surfing and girlfriends. We started playing house parties and people started thinking that maybe we were a band called "The Heaters" and also "The Gidget Haters." I knew we needed a new name, so I looked in a thesaurus I used for songwriting and under the word "hate" I found "ill will" - ding ding ding, we have a winner. We all liked the name, and I thought about the street signs that had the "do not do" red circle deal and decided the words ILL WILL should be covering the red, instead of the red covering what not to do - meaning Ill Will does not obey things that should not be done. We are currently jamming again with Derek Van Metere on drums and Lance Peterson (guitar), Brian Ramsay (bass) and myself. We will start gigging again at the end of spring."