Years before forming Passion Pit and becoming a purveyor of gossamer synthpop, frontman Michael Angelakos was embedded in a much different music scene: ska. In 1999, while attending high school school in Buffalo, New York, he founded a raucous ska band called Cherry Bing. Angelakos put out two releases with the group and played shows around the Upstate New York area before leaving to pursue other projects in 2002 (they would later join the Warped Tour without him in 2004).
Though a short-lived venture, footage of his time with Cherry Bing exists, giving fans a window into his pre-Passion Pit days, and shows just how music-oriented he was — no matter the genre — so early on. Check out some of that footage above, which shows him and Cherry Bing performing a gig at Amherst High School in 2002. Angelakos was already a pretty solid frontman back then and even got the crowd to let loose and skank.
Angelakos recently released a holiday “visual” album, Merry Christmas, Mr. Fields.
