The 88 - Biography
The 88 is a four-piece indie pop rock band from Los Angeles. High school pals Adam Merrin (piano/keys) and Keith Slettedahl (vocal/guitar) started recording songs together during their senior year, laying the groundwork for what would become The 88 which today includes bassist Todd O'Keefe and drummer Anthony Zimmitti.
The 88 released their debut album, Kind of Light (Mootron Records), in 2003 and started touring extensively, winning LA Weekly’s “Best Pop/Rock Band of the Year” honors. By the time Anthony Zimmitti joined the group for their second album, 2005’s Over and Over (Mootron Records), the band’s reputation was growing steadily, with appearances on television shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Last Call with Carson Daly, and as musicians hired to play a high school prom on How I Met Your Mother. In 2007, the band signed to Island Records and released their major label debut, Not Only... But Also, the next year. They parted with Island after one year and returned to releasing their albums independently, including 2009's digital-only "unofficial album" This Must Be Love. The 88 gained further visibility with the use of their track “At Least It Was Here” in the opening credits of NBC’s cult sitcom Community.
In 2010, the band learned that mutual hero Ray Davies of The Kinks was looking for a band to open for and back him on an upcoming US tour. Merrin, Slettedahl, and Zimmitti recorded a half-dozen Kinks covers and sent them to Davies, who invited them along for the biggest tour of their careers. Several months later, The 88 were on a plane to the UK, where they once again toured with Davies, and headlined several dates on their own. While in England, Davies asked the band to record a few songs for a Kinks tribute album, See My Friends (Decca), at his very own Konk Studios, which saw the band collaborating with Lucinda Williams, Alex Chilton, and of course, Ray Davies. In 2011, the Kinks frontman and The 88 teamed up once more for a US tour. That same year, the band co-scored a film for the first time, Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends With Kids starring Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Adam Scott, and Megan Fox.
2013 saw the release of the band’s sixth studio album, The Fortune Teller, and the release of a digital-only EP, Amoeba Green Room Session, recorded live at Amoeba Hollywood.