Minus Shamos began as a garage "jam band" initially involving Shaun Amos and myself, Sean Potts, in Regina, Saskatchewan.
Despite knowing Shaun Amos, or "Shamos", all through high school, him and I never played together until the summer of 2006 after meeting at a Mad Caddies show. We talked for a bit during set changes and he said he played guitar, I said I drummed, and we both liked the same music. We both learned a few songs by Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, MxPx, Tsunami Bomb, and so forth and soon began jamming almost every other day. Soon after starting out, Kyle Krug joined the fray. He and Shamos both had jammed together during high school; most often to Blink 182 type songs.
We were initially nameless and threw around joke names such as ShaunKyleSean and Nubsauce, but we never felt the need to have a name since we never really migrated out of a garage and mostly just played cover songs. Often times, friends of ours would come around to either see what we were doing, hang out, or be on their way passing between someone elses house. A few times, someone would have brought along any instruments they might have had hanging around, such as trumpets, trombones, or accordions, but they never stuck.
Shamos and I wrote some songs during this time, but there was often a difference in opinion and taste in what to play. Anti-Flag's "f the government" style always seemed to recur; but on my part, it was not entirely desireable. I never paid attention enough to the government to really have a strong opinion on it, let alone to dedicated playing only songs against it.
Between 2006 to present, I have been living in Medicine Hat to enrol in and complete the Visual Communications program at The Medicine Hat College. Shaun Amos is still in Regina; and as a result, I am are "Minus Shamos."
Minus Shamos!