MEST

MEST was formed in 1995 with Tony Lovato, his brother Steve, and his cousin Matt in Blue Island, Illinois; a small working-class town on the Southside of Chicago. From the beginning, Tony used that blue collar work ethic to quickly build a dedicated following in the growing Chicago punk rock scene. They released a couple of demos on cassette in 1996 and 1997 and a full length record in 1998. This got the attention of John Feldmann, lead singer and frontman of the punk ska band Goldfinger, who secured them a demo deal with Maverick Records. Seven days after turning the recordings, Maverick signed them to a multi-record deal. MEST released four records with Maverick/Warner Brothers from the year 2000 to 2005, two of which went gold in Japan.

MEST has appeared on TV shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live and Last Call with Carson Daly. MEST had toured in the United States, Europe and Japan numerous times, and performed as one of the headlining acts on the now infamous WARPED TOUR in 2003 and 2005.

In 2006 MEST announced their break-up and did their farewell tour “So Long and Thanks For The Booze.”

In 2018, MEST headed into the studio with Cameron Webb to start production on the next record. MEST initially signed with Cyber Trax, the record label of El Hefe from the legendary Punk Rock band NOFX. After finishing the record, communication broke down with that label and Tony was reminded of his grandfather’s statement and decided it was best to buy the record back and release it himself, raising over $54,000 on Kickstarter.

MEST released their 7th Full length album titled 'Masquerade' in January 2020, three months before the world shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic.

MEST toured extensively in 2019 as direct support for Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake and was the special guest on the Reel Big Fish/Bowling for Soup co-headlining tour in the summer of 2019. Finally ending the year doing direct support for the Swedish punk rock band Millencolin.

MEST has spent the last 2 years writing/recording the first of three LP’s which will come out this year with the 1st one titled 'Youth.' The first single “When We Were Young” featuring Jaret Reddick of Bowling For Soup will be released April 11th, with the record coming out May 31st. Tony has secured a deal for the upcoming MEST LP to be released on Avex Records in Japan as well as SBAM Records in Europe.

Releases:

"Destination Unknown" - February 29, 2024 

"Youth" - June 28, 2024