The Bank Robbers

The Bank Robbers are a post-hardcore/pop punk band that started out in 1998 and lasted until around 2006-2008, ending with five members total.

May of 1998 in central New Jersey is where three friends decided to start a band, naming it The Bank Robbers. The original lineup consisted of Erik Xavier Raj as one of the vocalists and the bassist, Robert Nardone as the second vocalist and the bands guitarist, and finally Gary Gandy as the drummer. During the time that the band was only a three piece they released two albums, those being titled ‘Head in the Clouds’ and ‘Life Is but a Dream’.

Head in the Clouds consisted of only five tracks, those being:

Four Leaf Clover
Too Many Questions
I Wish You Were My Girlfriend
Thinking Out Loud
Taking Away The One True Thing

And Life Is but a Dream consisted of eight tracks, those being:

In Like a Lyon, Out Like a Lamb
Crossing Hulses
All Is Not Fair in Love and War
Jamie
Taking Away The One True Thing
Sunday Night
I Want You To Know
Nothing Left To Say

The first album is more of a demo that the band recorded themselves, but the second album is the first one that they released under the record label “No Milk Records.” It had a major boost in sound quality, and is when the band started taking themselves more seriously, adding Joe Salvaggia to the band as a guitarist. This album would also contain a demo, ‘All Is Not Fair in Love and War’. This demo would go on to become a song in their next upcoming album that would be released in 2003.

In 2003 they not only added Jon Walka as another guitarist, but they had a complete lineup change that stuck for the rest of the bands career. This change kept all the same members, but took Rob off of the guitar and made him vocalist only, this change then made the lineup: Rob as the vocalist, Erik as the bands bassist and second vocalist, Gary on the drums, and both Joe and Jon as the bands guitarists.

During the same year of 2003, they not only did a lineup change but they released the album, ‘The Pattern Reversed’, and with this album I think the band really found their sound. This album contains ten tracks, those being:

The Pattern Reversed
A Chance Worth Taking
Losing More Than Just An Hour
The Rest of Your Life Starts Here
Let The Chips Fall
Your Best Kept Secret
Every Time We Say Goodbye
Bethany Beach
All Is Not Fair in Love and War
The Definition Of Beauty

This album separated the band from the pop punk sound that they had, and went in a more post-hardcore direction with heavier instrumentals and more screaming. With the release of this album the band also put out a music video for the track ‘Let The Chips Fall’. They started shooting it in October of 2003 and finished it sometime in November, however I unfortunately couldn’t find the video and it wasn’t archived for me to download it. We do have their description of it which is that it was shot in a “spooky/haunted type house” and that it was fun. Although I wasn’t able to get the music video, I was able to get a video of them playing live in 2004 that was edited by Jon Walka that I’ll link here.

And finally in 2006 the band would record their last album, ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’. This album contained eleven tracks, those being:

I’ll See You in Another Life
Defending The Kingdom
Making Promises
I Can Make You Disappear
Believe Everything
Spirit of the Stairway
The Sound of the World
The Truth Is Rarely Pure, and Never Simple
Facing Our Nightmare
Before the Words Are Spoken
Here’s Your Song You’ve Always Wanted

After this album we don’t get much from the band, they were featured in a compilation album titled ‘Drive-Thru Records And PureVolume.com: Bands You Love, Have Heard Of, And Should Know’, where they have a song that we’ve never heard before titled ‘The Way Things Fade’. They were also featured in many other compilation albums and played live for awhile, but after that nothing. For the longest time their MySpace paged advertised ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’s release and didn’t talk about anything else and unfortunately they would disappear like every other small band I research. (Looking further into their MySpace archives I did find that the band had a weird ‘The Bank Robbers 2.0’ thing where it seems all the band members changed in the 2010s, but nothing else.)