It's refreshing to hear of rock 'n' roll dreams coming true. The boys of CREASE have been working quite a while for the disc you're listening to now. Hailing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, this hard rockin' foursome knows how it feels to pay their dues. “We've actually overpaid our dues," jokes drummer Eric Dorigo. His brother and resident guitarist Fritz adds, "It feels good that this is happening to friends that I grew up with. The stuff we would talk about in high school, it took so long, but now it's actually happening."

In 1994, Fritz and Eric along with vocalist Kelly Meister were three fourths of Excessive. The hard rock outfit had been plying their wares locally for years. However, when their bassist quit to get married the remaining members decided that it was do or die from this point. Greg Gershengorn was brought on board to revitalize their ambitions and they changed their name to CREASE. With new songwriting blood in the mix, the foursome began to work on all new material while gigging around the Fort Lauderdale area. Soon thereafter they landed a deal with an indie label and released Interference, which garnered them a Jammy Award nomination from JAM magazine for "Best Independent Release of the Year for the State of Florida." A year later however, the deal went sour and the band was back at square one. Despite the enormous setback, the collective steeled their resolve and spent the following three years recording over sixty new tunes and becoming a fixture in the Sunshine State's club circuit.

In late 1997, CREASE set out to record an album. However, they ran out of money five songs into the process, leaving them with "Frustration," "Non-User," "Building Up," "Making Progress," and a rocked out version of Tommy Tutone's "Jenny (867-5309)." When the ...Six Pack Shy of Pretty EP was released, it got an airing on a local music show on South Florida's premier rock station 94.9 ZETA (WZTA). When the program director Greg Steele heard the anthemic drive of "Frustration," he loved it so much that he decided to give CREASE a shot. "When I first heard 'Frustration' on the radio, I was speechless," says Kelly. "I thought 'This must be it'. This has to be it,' because we'd never had anything on the radio before."

“Frustration” has a bittersweet history as Greg explains. "I had a girlfriend who lost her mind and ended up joining a cult. I was kinda pissed at myself for getting wrapped up in a girl like that, I thought I was smarter than that. I loved her and it bugged me that I couldn't see what was going on… She stole my money, my car, everything. So that week I just sat in my house and started writing, so actually it was a good thing." With the song climbing the local charts, 94.9 ZETA asked the band to open for Dishwalla in front of 8,000 people. The next day on the station's morning show, the phones were jammed with calls about the band. "Frustration" subsequently hit #1 and CREASE were added to the ZETAFEST bill. Four slots away from headlining the show, they proved that they had what it took to entertain a crowd of 35,000 Floridians who wanted nothing more than to rock out. With Zeta helping to raise their profile, CREASE outsold Kid Rock and Metallica in the Miami market for the following two weeks!

The next year the band hooked up with New York-based manager, Jamie Schoenfeld, and spent the next year playing a slew of showcases up and down the Eastern seaboard, as well as opened for the Goo Goo Dolls, Cheap Trick, Buckcherry, Our Lady Peace, and Sponge. The New Times of Broward/Palm Beach voted CREASE "Best Local Rock Band of 1999" as the labels came calling. In December of 1999 Crease signed with Roadrunner Records. So eager to get the album out, the label urged the band to start recording before the ink had even dried.

For over two months they laid down tracks at Elysian Fields in Boca Raton and Audio Vision in Miami. Fritz jokes about the experience; "It wasn't our first time in a studio, it was our first time in a nice studio." Kelly adds, "It was exciting to be in a real studio. I blew my voice the first night I was trying so hard." In addition to tracking a slew of new tunes, all five songs from ...Six Pack Shy of Pretty were remixed and revamped for inclusion on what would become Vindication.

For the band, the title Vindication just seemed to succinctly sum up their lives of the past fourteen years. Vindicated and ready to rock, this is what CREASE has been waiting for their whole lives.