When guitarist Rich Jones joined a band whose name is recited ad nauseum in the Catholic church, fans of sacrilegious punk rock may have surmised a connection with his former band, the Black Halos. Yet Amen had already existed for nearly half a decade as a project of the producer, songwriter, vocalist, and all-around frontman, Casey Chaos. Jones joined up with a second version of the Amen group along with fellow guitarist Sonny Mayo and bassist John Fahnestock, the previous members of Chaos' outfit having apparently recited their final Amen.
Jones, not to be confused with other performers with this name such as one of the founders of the Necrofix group, replaced guitarist Paul Fig and found himself in a group that was being forced to buy back an unreleased tape originally produced for Virgin for the price of some 300 large. Jones originally came out of the Vancouver rock scene, where the Black Halos emerged in the '90s as part of a punk revival scene, in particular aping the sound of groups such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls. ~ Eugene Chadbourne