Jack Grisham

Jack Grisham (born July 22, 1961) is an American rock singer from Southern California.

He is the vocalist for the punk rock band T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty), which emerged from the late 1970s Los Angeles hardcore punk rock scene, along with Black Flag, Circle Jerks and Bad Religion.

Grisham has also fronted the bands Vicious Circle, the Joykiller, Tender Fury and Cathedral of Tears.

He records with T.S.O.L., the Joykiller and the Manic Low.

Jack Grisham was born in Hayward, California, and then moved to Long Beach.

In 1978, Grisham began rehearsing as lead vocalist with future Joneses/The Klan/A.K.A. guitarist Steve Houston (a.k.a. Steve Dead) to form Vicious Circle with bassist Laddy Tirrell and future T.S.O.L. drummer Todd Barnes.

Vicious Circle quickly got a following within the beach cities and Los Angeles punk rock scene.

Vicious Circle was notorious for Ultra-violence at shows in the early days of punk rock.

Grisham is later quoted as saying "Whatever the logic, the Vicious Circle was a maniac attractor."

Childhood friends Grisham and Barnes were joined by Ron Emory and Mike Roche to form T.S.O.L. The original line-up of the band was Grisham on vocals, Ron Emory on guitars, Mike Roche on bass, and Todd Barnes on drums.

T.S.O.L.'s initial line-up gained fans from the hardcore punk, art punk, death punk, deathrock, horror punk, and goth genres.

During his time with T.S.O.L., the band was notorious for their controversial, transgressive, and political lyrics.

Jack Grisham brought a darker fashion and sound deathrock to the highly political punk rock scene in Southern California, in particular, Long Beach, California painting his face white, dressing in all-black goth clothes and doing photo-shoots in cemetery locations in the dead of night.

The True Sounds Of Liberty were among the first waves of Southern California bands which embarked upon Nationwide tours performing "punk rock" and "death rock" music in 1982 and also 1983 along with contemporaries such as Black Flag and the Circle Jerks which embraced D.I.Y. ethos of the early punk rock scene self-financing their concert tours with little to no outside assistance from the record industry.

The original T.S.O.L. broke up on January 9, 1983, following the infamous S.I.R. Studios "Sunset Strip" Riot at a headlining T.S.O.L. show featuring Redd Kross, Social Distortion, Los Olvidados.

The space was filled to capacity with fans and punks alike outside the venue when violence ensued.

Grisham walked away from the band and violence, which was reaching unprecedented levels.

Ron Emory and Mike Roche enlisted vocalist Joe Wood, Grisham's brother-in-law at the time to fill the void left by his absence and drummer Mitch Dean for departing drummer Todd Barnes.

They played music that started as punk rock, but, with each new album changed to blues-inspired (hair metal).

Grisham's father, a career military man with 30 years in the Navy and Coast Guard, died in 1984.

Grisham's mother was a military housewife.

Grisham was one of five children and has an older sister, two older brothers, and a younger sister.

Grisham's older sister was part of the hippie subculture (or as he calls it, "Late 60's protest crap").

As a result, by the time he was six years old, Grisham was reading publications like Fritz the Cat and Zap Comix, and listening to albums by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, the Beach Boys, the Ventures, etc. Grisham cites the albums We're Only in it for the Money and Let it Bleed as two of his musical influences.

In his early life, Grisham's family moved back to Long Beach, California.

Growing up, he was a rebellious youth heavily into surfing, skateboarding, and in his words "causing trouble."

While in high school, he met future T.S.O.L. drummer Todd Barnes through a girlfriend.

Grisham and Barnes became friends, and took off with the girlfriend's guitar and amplifier and began playing around with sounds.

In the beginning, Grisham claims, "All we did was make a bunch of noise and yell, "Fuck the neighbors" all day."

While in his teens, Grisham started experimenting with mood altering substances.

Soon he became addicted to drugs and alcohol.

He recalled, "I was a nut. I used to think I didn't have a problem because I didn't shoot up and I didn't take acid."

After several minor tangles with the law stemming from his drug and alcohol abuse, Grisham married a 16-year-old girl in Mexico, which he claims got him on the road to sobriety.

They spent several years touring and recording under the name T.S.O.L. After leaving TSOL, Grisham's interests included the use of synthesizers, declaring in a 1984 interview that synthesizers were "a meaningful addition to any group," but "They're just too new. Synthesizers are like punck rock. Everyone hated punck rock when it first came out. No one wants change."

Grisham has been sober since January 1989.

He has two daughters, Anastasia and Georgia, and resides in Huntington Beach, California.

The original T.S.O.L. reformed in 1989, but Todd Barnes died of a brain aneurysm in 1999.

When asked how he got sober in a 2008 interview, Grisham said, "Actually, I married an underage girl. I wanted her to get clean. I said I would support her. I was like, "Hey, I'll support you so you can get help.

I'll go to the meetings too.

Then she ended up leaving and I ended up staying."