Jonathan Bunch

Jon Bunch, vocalist and songwriter with the band Sense Field, has lived through a saga typical of the music business, unfortunately for him, much quicker in the telling than in the actual process. Signed to Warner, his band had an album release held up for nearly five years because the label insisted there were no commercial songs being recorded. Finally, Bunch's group was dismissed completely from the big label, went on to a smaller firm called Nettwerk, and promptly scored a radio hit with "Save Yourself," one of the songs that Warners had been convinced had no potential whatsoever. Like many of the lyrics Bunch comes up with, this one was semi-autobiographical. His father, a police officer in Los Angeles, married at the age of 18 and divorced only a few years later. The children from this relationship wound up both neglected and abused, tragedies that Bunch has processed through various angry songs including "Haunted," "Burn," {"Memory,"} and "No Medicine." Bunch's main musical partner has been guitarist Chris Evenson. The two formed their first band in 1986 in Harbor City, California. Bunch's first taste of recording was adding vocals to a demo his friend was producing for a college recording class. Soon the partners formed a group called Reason To Believe, named after a popular song written by Tim Hardin. The first version of the Sense Field band was formed in 1990, and a five-song EP emerged as the first official documentation of the group one year later. The Revelation label, known for hardcore music, put out both an EP, and the first full-length LP by the group in the first half of the '90s. Extensive touring in both the United States and Europe led to interest from Warners, which wound up resulting in the previously-described debacle, from which this artist and his bunch of musical associates were able to save themselves. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide