Taproot

Taproot is Steve Richards - vocals, Mike DeWolf - guitar, Jarrod Montague - drums and Phil Lipscomb - bass. Taproot formed in 1997, in Ann Arbor, MI. In 1998 Taproot recorded their first demo tape, and sent it to Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst. Taproot, not thinking that Fred would even respond, but were surprised when he did.

Fred was planning on signing Taproot, but took entirely too long, and Taproot in turn signed a deal with Atlantic records. Fred Durst felt as though he had been betrayed and cursed Taproot, however they weren't even fazed. In June of 2000 Taproot's first album "The Gift" was released, exposing the world to their thrash style, and heavy hooks.

Taproot performed at the 2000 Ozzfest tour due to enormous support from Jack Osbourne [Ozzy's son]. Due to this performance they created quite a buzz, especially with "Rolling Stone Magazine". Rolling Stone proclaimed them as "the next contenders for the new-metal crown".

After Ozzfest they spent 7 months in Los Angeles recording their second album "Welcome" which was then released In 2002, peaking at #17 in the Billboards top 200. Taproot released their third album Blue Sky Reasearch was released in 2005 creating yet another buzz. Blue-Sky Research contained three tracks co-written by Billy Corgan.