How LIT Wrote MY OWN WORST ENEMY
Few songs really capture the late 90’s like the Lit’s track My Own Worst Enemy. While Lit was painted by those in the press and probably some in the public as an overnight success, they labored for 10 years changing music styles before they came up with their hit song. In today’s video let’s talk about the history of the song.
The band’s origins begin with frontman AJ Popoff and his brother Jeremy who is 2 years older They would hail from Fullerton, in Orange County.
It was at the age of 7 Jeremy learned to play a few songs on a Hammond Organ that belonged to his maternal grandfather.Ray Watson. Their grandfather was actually a touring drummer and singer playing in a jive-swing band post ww2.
Their grandfather soon bought Jeremy his own organ, while he bought AJ a drum kit. Jeremy would remark to Spin “I used to take lessons from this older lady who’d get mad at me for not reading the music and for playing everything by ear, “I would see her daughter taking kids upstairs for guitar lessons and I was super envious of those kids. They seemed super happy.” He’d eventually become a guitarist.
Their father meanwhile was a disc jockey who used the moniker A.J. Martin who in the 70’s and early 80’s worked at LA station KIIS-FM before moving to westwood one where he had a nationally syndicated radio show. . He brought home stacks and stacks of records with the Popoff’s living room containing thousands of pieces of Vinyl as Baba Booey would say. - mostly pop and rock artists. Their parents would eventually separate and the brothers spent a lot of time with their father helping out at the radio station including answering calls and helping out with contests. The brothers also took a liking to hard rock and metal during the 80’s - group’s like ratt, dokken, the scorpions, metallica
It was a concert there father took them to when they were 8 and 10 - a UFO/ Iron Maiden show at the long beach arena that the siblings realized they wanted to becoming musicians. They were especially enamored with iron maiden who at the time was fronted by Paul Dianno.
It was in 1984 the brothers Ajay met Bassist Kevin Baldiss in junior high or high schol. Baldes was into the same 80’s hard rock and metal Ajay was into.
Ajay and Kevinby their own admission were not athletic and weren’t super cool in school so music was their way of having fun. It was in 1988 AJ and Kevin Baldess would form the group Razzle. Razzle initially had Baldiss fronting the group and playing bass, while AJay was playing drums. They also enlisted guitarist Sean Holland. AJ’s time as a drummer was short-lived he only played one gig as the drummer before the band decided he should front the group. and Baldiss knew a drummer named Allen Shellenberger. Schellenberger was working at a sam goody store at the time. By 89/90 Aj’s older brother Jeremy joined the group.
Razzle started playing shows on the sunset strip and they garnered a pretty big following, egularly selling out places. Keep in mind they were teenagers at this point and making good money..
In 1993 Razzle released an EP, but they were starting to outgrow the music they had previously been into -. It just so happened they got into alternative and so called grunge music, which was popular at the time citing Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots as some of their biggest influences. They wanted to reinvent themselves and rebuild. They literally threw out their rolodex of hard earned contacts they had estalibhsed and it was now 1994.
Adapting the new monicker Stain, which was inspired by teh Nirvana song, the musicians found a rundown warehouse space in anaheim. The lineup simplified to Aj on vocals, his brother jeremy on guitar, baldness on bass and schelenberger on drums. They’d spend the next six months trying to shake their past and come up with a new sound. The band soon befriend Roota zepedeees who worked as an intern for hitmaker desmond child. As part of her job she would frequently go out with producersworking Child and see bands in LA. At one show at gazarri’s in 1992 she saw Razzle perform. She saw something special in the band and was taken aback by the massive crowd they had attracted After the gig, she would make her way backstage and introduced herself to the band and told them she worked for desmond child not sure if they knew who he was. Oh they knew alright as. Child was a prolific hitmaker having worked with countless well established artists including aerosmith and bon jovi to name a few. She would eventually become Lit’s manager.
It turned out a band in Ohio already ha
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