hamilton formed brothers past in  straight out of high school with classmates joe damico bass nick desiderio drums and his older brother jim hamilton guitar in  hamilton met tom mckee and asked him to join the band as a keyboardist and vocalist this initial line-up toured the mid-atlantic area heavily until  when damico desiderio and the elder hamilton brother left the band to pursue more normal life styles hamilton and mckee settled on hiring clay parnell and rick lowenberg as the new rhythm section in  and began touring again in 