The setting Akron Ohio, the band The Atomic Hellcats. After Dave (guitarist/singer) moved to Joplin MO to be a sociology professor, the Atomic Hellcats moved on as a three piece. This recording was a bridge of sounds from the earlier punk rock roots of the band and guitarist/singer Mark's post grunge influenced writing. Mark took over the majority of vocals and most of the song writing after Dave exited the band and this recording picks up the pieces after Dave's departure. The album tracks were the live set list and in the order of The Atomic Hellcats live show at the time. The opening track and ending track even had how the band opened and closed their live sets.

Hey everyone Mark here, this album was recorded in 1997at closer look studios in Shaker Heights/Cleveland and also at Nicehead studios (aka my water logged basement in Akron). Remember this was before we all had pro tools and personal studios in our homes. The first time we recorded these tracks our engineer was trying out this new fandangled way of recording music on to a fostex hard disk system. All of the EP's we did to that point were recorded to ADAT or Tape. So it was exciting trying this new process.

At the time I was working 72 hours a week and when I wasn't sleeping we would record or practice. I'd wake up and head down stairs and Jim and John would be there ready for practice. I'd ask for time off so I could actually record which put me in hot water at work. I remember recording in cleveland and it was one of those magical times when everything just seem to go right. Everything was tight and we just sounded really good, especially our drummer. We were really excited that the material was sounding so good, shortly after though we received the awesomtastic news that our engineers hard drive crashed and we lost everything!!! lol needless to say we weren't too happy. So we headed back into the studio to record again and our drummer at the time John wasn't too happy and frankly played really lack luster. The magic was gone. Oh well, he was just a moody feller I guess.

We finished the guitar and vocals in my basement here and there when I was off of work. I think it showed on the vocals etc, I was just drained. But we finished the project and it's a pretty solid mix of old, middle, and new songs with the Hellcats. Fun to look back on.

We even decided to throw in a hidden acoustic track. Jim and I had a friend Chris who recorded the Hellcats first EP. We went up into his attic one night and recorded 3 demo songs just for fun. An acoustic version of "Fuck You" which was an old punk song we recorded on the "death ride" ep. Dave and I played an acoustic set once and we thought it would be funny to take a really fast punk song and do it super slow and dark. So I thought it would be cool to record a version of it. Chris played lead guitar and we just played it live. It was winter and I was sick, you can hear me sniffle a couple of times. It was raw and intimate. It was real.

The other two songs we did were "dream date" and we wrote the song "sometimes" right there on the spot. That song ended up being recorded under the band name "The Shirkers" later on. Any way back to "Fuck You", we gave the engineer the track and he added his piano as well as polished it a little and that's what you hear on this album.

Over the years this music has held up pretty well, I even recorded a few tunes for my latest band GOMI over a decade later. Those were times I always think back to, it's where I learned about playing and writing music. I'm thankful I had those times in my life and I thank my brothers Jim, Dave, Gary and John for letting me be a part of their lives and create music with them.

This was inteded to be released as a CD but we dissolved the band, Jim and I went on under a new name "the shirkers" concentrating more on my style of writing. So these tracks never really saw the light of day. Only passed on to friends, and samples passed on by word of mouth via cassette. So here it is "the sins of el diablo", hope you enjoy a piece of the past.

Mark