INTERCEPT was born in 2004 when lead-singer, Christian Knudsen, wanted to put together an EP of his acoustic material to introduce himself more formally on the San Diego acoustic scene. Knowing that he wanted instrumental back-up, Christian approached his brother, Jeff Knudsen, who was living in Los Angeles, about putting some dueling acoustic parts on the record.

While Jeff quietly put together those parts during his free time, Christian began to meet with ex-Forwater drummer, Jason Weiner. Jason, dabbling in a new band at the time and sharing a practice space with them, agreed to let Christian in for frequent, secret rehearsals for the album material. They agreed that if Jeff could put something together they would bring in Jason, also, to fill out the backing tracks. What they didn’t expect was that Jeff would quickly bring back excellent, counterpoint riffs, as well as a request from bassist Phil Romo, the bassist for Jeff’s L.A. band, A Blue Aura, to be allowed to add bass lines to the quirky pop songs. All the pieces were in place.

The members worked on their parts separately and met for the first time while working in the La Mesa, CA studio of Sven-Erik Seaholm, an extremely talented producer who would go on to produce the band’s first LP, as well. The unique backgrounds of the members – both in history and influence – brought significantly different takes on the music, and the separate parts of the album came together easily; it was soon ready to be printed. As a surprise to everyone, the short album, full of fast-tempo, charging acoustic guitar riffs and unusual recording ideas, took off on its own.

They performed frequently across southern California, beginning mainly in coffee houses and very small bars, in order to achieve some stage presence and musical quality. It wasn’t long before a small army of fans were attending every performance. Besides singing along with every word for the short EP, fans were also noticing that new material coming from the group was beginning to creep into alternative rock, with bigger choruses and stronger structural builds and solid tempos. Letters and emails began to pour in requesting a new album.

When Yellow Dog was released in late 2005, the band was clearly moving into more sophisticated rock songs and doors began to open. They quickly went from performing some of the smallest venues that a band can gig, to filling rooms at some of the most storied venues in the nation, including the House of Blues, Viper Room, the Roxy, even taking an opportunity to share a main stage with the Gin Blossoms, Howard Jones and Peter Frampton at the Temecula Balloon and Wine Festival in 2006. Their music has been featured on MTV’s The Challenge: The Duel, multiple times, their LP was featured in gift bags at the Sundance Film Festival and they have been featured acts on dozens of websites and music festival rosters.

The music comes first for INTERCEPT, as can be quickly learned by listening to any of their released material to-date; while the songs have pop hooks, the structures and sounds that hold everything together are not cookie-cutter or disposable. The band prides itself in working to put together unique material that features echoes of modern music while combining elements of all the separate influences of the band members, from jazz, latin, classical, rock, and singer/songwriter genres; hence, the name INTERCEPT, which taps into the idea that any song takes its shape from the diverse elements of many styles. Any musical creation that the band puts forth can be viewed as a function on a graph, which eventually crosses both the rock and classical axis.