The Austerity Program is two people from New York City and their drum machine. Thad Calabrese plays bass and Justin Foley sings and plays guitar.
Thad and Justin began playing music together while attending college in New York City. We were not, at that point, the Austerity Program but you can hear that music if you listen to the Polonium CD.
After school Justin moved up to Hartford, CT while Thad stayed in NYC. This made practicing more infrequent and difficult. In 1997, Justin moved back to the Big Apple and we began working on new material in earnest. We played our first show in 1998 at Coney Island High. Do not ever try to lie and tell us that you were there, because we personally knew each of the 11 people in the audience. At that point we kept all of our stuff in a big loft in the Bronx. Practices were either freezing cold or swelteringly hot depending upon the time of the year.
Currently, Thad lives in Brooklyn and Justin lives in Queens. We get together about once a week. During the day Thad teaches college. Justin does research for a labor union with the aim of destroying the system. Or at least providing a check on the inherent market failures of capitalism.
We are both married to two wonderful women. That's "both", not "each". We've got five kids between us.
We used to be on Hydra Head records but then they stopped putting out records because they went broke. This was unfortunate, but it provided a reason to help make this label happen. You can buy our stuff through Hydra Head or us - it really doesn't matter. We still like those guys a lot.