Drummer Mark Davis played in Californian hard-rock band Ugly Kid Joe.



The initial line up was completed early 1990 when Klaus Eichstadt joined singer Whitfield Crane. The band was called Overdrive, and the other members were Eric Phillips on guitar, Phil Hildengaertner on bass, and Mark Davis on drums.



Mark Davis got his first drum kit from his mom when he was ten. He practiced all day with his friends in his room. After high-school in Santa Barbara, Mark worked as a grocery store clerk wearing a short haired wig for more than a year, after his boss got on his case about being a musician.



Davis had replaced initial drummer John Spaulding who had gone crazy. With Davis behind the drum kit Ugly Kid Joe became very succesfull with their debut EP "As Ugly As They Wanna Be" and their first full-length album "America’s Least Wanted".



Early 1994, drummer Mark Davis left the band to get married. The band played the Rock In Rio festival in Brazil with sit-in drummer Bob Fernandez from the Electric Love Hogs, and recorded NIB for the Black Sabbath tribute Nativity In Black.



Bobby Fernandez however didn’t become UKJ’s new drummer. The band auditioned tons of drummers, but wasn’t satisfied with any of them. At a point where Whit was getting kind of frustrated, he went to Colorado to go snowboarding with a friend called Jimmy, who owned a snowboard show in Beaver Creek. At night, they visited a Souls At Zero show in a club and Whit was immediately impressed with the band’s drummer Shannon Larkin.



Whit went on stage to jam on AC/DC's Sin City and immediately knew that Shannon had to be the man. Whit invited him to do audition in Santa Barbara, and the next thing they knew, Shannon Larkin was UKJ’s new drummer.