Punk / New Wave
Yorba Linda, California, USA

Early Southern California band that also played the same concert that also featured the first live appearances of The Lifesavors and Undercover. This concert was at a roller skating rink in Yorba Linda sometime late in 1980. The Chosen Ones formed around 1979-80 in Yorba Linda, California, by RG Bassman (vocals), Roso Garcia, Rich Durbin, Chris Pavlis (younger brother of Danny Pavlis of Boaz and Undercover), and Brian Doidge (who would later join The Lifesavors, L.S.U., and Aunt Bettys).

Joey Taylor of Undercover would later recall that “they were young and not bad for their age but they only recorded a demo.” Brian Doidge stated that their sound was heavily influenced by The Ramones.

In about late 1979 or early 1980, the band put out an ad for a singer. Michael Knott drove from Huntington Beach to Yorba Kinda to audition. This is where Doidge met Knott. Knott decided to join The Lifesavors instead.

Doidge described the end of The Chosen Ones: “The Chosen Ones were kind of disintegrating, we were only like 15 and 16 years old, and we were still going through puberty and fighting all the time, so it was hard to keep things together. I started another band called The Altar Boys with a couple of guys from The Chosen Ones, and right when I got that together and we were about to start playing shows, The Lifesavers recruited me to play guitar behind Michael. I was 16 years old and I remember the drummer was mad and he was like, 'We can't let this little kid in, he doesn't even have his license'… but we ended up being good friends with him, his name was Kevin Lee and he ended up being the drummer on Shaded Pain and some other stuff we did, but yeah, that was funny. I don't remember if we ever played a show as The Altar Boys, we were going to, but Kevin's brother is Mike Stand and he came to me one day and said he was starting a band and wanted to use the name Altar Boys, and I said sure, we weren't going to use it so you're welcome to it, and then the Altar Boys went on to play for a long time too.”

The band seems to have continued after this until at least 1984, where a live recording of them playing a more pop sound at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa surfaced with the line up of as actually Bassman, Durbin, Pavlis, and Greg Johnson.

The Pavlis brothers also went on to join Private Confession.

1980? Independent

RG Bassman - Vocals
Roso Garcia
Rich Durbin
Chris Pavlis
Brian Doidge

• The Chosen Ones live at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa circa 1984