Park

Park is from Springfield, Illinois. They began in 1996 with Justin Valenti, Eric Lipe and Jon Heupel. After three shows as a trio Park played with one of Ladd Mitchell's former bands and Ladd joined Park a week later. Lipe and Heupel left in 2000 to pursue school and were replaced by Miles Logan and Timmy Costello. This current incarnation is the fourth major version of Park. Ladd Mitchell is the only member that has been in all four incarnations of Park. In October 2001, Lobster Records released the Park album, No Signal. It was produced by Cameron Webb (Lit, Over It, Social Distortion, and later Silverstein). With the release of No Signal, Park embarked on a yearlong non-stop North American tour, three times around. They then went home to write songs and returned to California for the recording of "It Won't Snow Where You're Going", again produced by Cameron Webb, and released in November 2003. Park went on the road again, touring the US three times in 2004. In 2005, frontman Ladd Mitchell released a solo CD under the name A Times Beach Crush Factor. They recently released a new album, Building a Better. in 2006. Park recorded a cover version of the Blink-182 song Obvious, which was included in the compilation album A Tribute to Blink 182: Pacific Ridge Records Heroes of Pop-Punk, released by Pacific Ridge Records in 2006. On February 3, 2007, a blog on the Park myspace revealed that Ladd would be leaving the band due to personal reasons, and the band would be breaking up. In a recent interview with the music blog "Sleeping with Headphones," Mitchell revealed that his intentions for ending the band were to pursue a normal life with his family. Park's DVD, titled Weathering a Summer, premiered at their final hometown show on May 5, 2007, with an official release still pending.The band has also stated that a DVD featuring the final show will be released in the near future.