Agent Orange (USA)

Agent Orange is a punk band from Placentia, California. They are a surf-punk band from the 1980s who first gained attention with their song Bloodstains which they wrote for a local Orange County compilation album. After the compilation album the group's then managers presented KROQ, Pasadena radio station's D.J. Rodney Bingenheimer with a demo tape, which soon became one of his show's biggest hits.

Besides having Mike Palm and Scott Miller as original members, Steve Soto was the power trio’s first bass player, the one who played on the first “Bloodstains”. The Darkness Version of this song later appeared on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4. Soto later left the band to form The Adolescents. With new member James Levesque on bass, (writer of such hits as "Everything Turns Grey" and "Living in Darkness") the group found their way to the famous Living In Darkness sessions at Brian Elliot recording studio (Elliot is most known for having composed Madonna’s hit Papa Don’t Preach). The result of these sessions was their first long player, Living In Darkness (originally released by Posh Boy Records in November 1981), as well as a single and one or two bonus tracks that later surfaced on some E.P.s. Sam Bolle replaced Brent Liles in January 1991, and remained with the band until May 2003, when he joined Surf Guitar Legend Dick Dale's band, where he remains to this day- although he occasionally still performs with his old friends Mike and Dusty.

Agent Orange has had an enormous influence on the punk and hardcore scene, even though band members stated on Living in Darkness that "We don't feel a part of that scene at all." Agent Orange was one of the first bands to pioneer what would later be known as the skate-punk or skate-core scene. They developed a following in Fullerton along with The Adolescents. The band is still together today with few member changes. Their most recent album was in 2003 with Sonic Snake Session.