Ten Foot Pole

Ten Foot Pole is an American punk rock band, formerly on Epitaph Records. The band was founded in 1983 as Scared Straight. They renamed themselved in the early 1990s while on tour in Europe, not wanting to be mistaken for a «straight edge» punk band.
Before changing their name to Ten Foot Pole in the early 1990s, the band included nardcore punk members Scott Radinsky and Dennis Jagard. The band released two albums under their new name with the old lineup: Swill and Rev. After the release of Rev and a split EP with Sweden’s Satanic Surfers, Scott was forced to leave the band due to his professional baseball commitments and Ten Foot Pole’s desire to be a full-time touring band. From then on Jagard, who had been a principle writer, took on lead vocals as well as guitar.

The next albums, Unleashed and Insider developed a new fan base but lost some old time fans who preferred Scott’s voice, apparently including decision makers at Epitaph Records. The next album, Bad Mother Trucker was released on Victory Records, followed by Subliminable Messages on Go-Kart Records. Various musicians joined and left along the way, as the DIY band toured heavily in the US, Europe and Canada, including Eric Cody, Kevin Ruggeri, John Chapman, Dan Kelly, Chris Dalley, Keith Divel, and Mike Levy who is a Junior Varsity baseball coach for the Culver City High School Centaurs as well as a Social Studies teacher for Culver City Middle School in Culver City, CA. Lead singer Dennis is a sound engineer, who has mixed for artists including Prince and Return to Forever.

The band has just announced an upcoming show, April 4, 2009 at the Riorock festival in Belgium, after a 3 year hiatus.

Kevin Ruggeri is a member of the Canadian-based band Four Square. He teaches English courses at Conestoga High School, located in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

They were also featured in the Punk Goes Metal compilations performing a cover of «Love Song» by Tesla.

Discography:
(1993) Swill
(1994) Rev
(1995) Ten Foot Pole & Satanic Surfers Split
(1997) Unleashed
(1998) Insider
(2002) Bad Mother Trucker
(2004) Subliminable Messages