History of Knight Avenger
1999-2000
Back in 1999 a small group of young men in Ohio got together and wanted to create an INXS tribute band so the four of us got together in Tom’s basement and we began to practice playing INXS songs and found out that in order to replicate their music we needed more than 4 musicians! So we wanted to keep it at a 4 man band so we began to write our own songs. The band at the time was Mike Tait on vocals/guitar, Tom Jonker on Drums, Mike Collins on guitar and finally Darren McCoy on bass. This was the original line-up but a band without a name yet or our own songs.
2000-2001
In late 2000, Mike Collins wanted to devote more time to his children as he lived an hour away from Tom’s house so band “jams” started to become an every other weekend type thing and eventually he left the band without notice. In 2001 Darren McCoy went from part time at UPS to going full time which demanded most of his time which we had to accept and eventually that resulted in his departure.
2001-2004
After the departure of Mike Collins and Darren McCoy it was just Tom Jonker and Mike Tait, during this period it was mostly jamming and coming up with ideas and only a few songs recorded as Tom had the mixers and equipment in his basement. Those songs were scrapped and to this day they don’t exists on any recordings. In 2004 Mike Tait took on a job working with his father at a company in Washington D.C. and moved to an apartment in Fredericksburg Virginia, Mike Tait being originally from Virginia always had a passion for songwriting and music.
2004-2008
2004-2006 Mike Tait and Tom Jonker exchanged music ideas and tracks through emails which proved to be a real challenge, so Mike and Tom agreed to go separate ways on the music scene. 2006-2008 Mike Tait and Tom Jonker took a hiatus from Music together but Mike Tait didn’t give up and began writing lyrics to songs and recording several tracks in a spare bedroom at his house in Katy, Texas.
2008-2014
2008-2009 Mike Tait continued to write and record tracks to melody’s to several unnamed songs which were at the time considered just song ideas and riffs for future recordings. 2010 Mike Tait moved to Shenzhen China for 4 years. During the 4 years living in China Mike Tait wrote lyrics to over 60 songs which four of the songs that are on the self-titled Knight Avenger album were written while living in China. While living in China Mike Tait created a five member online band with four people two of which lived in the USA one living in Canada and one living in Australia, the idea was to get five people to create music together without having to record together, Mike Tait had a small studio in China and would take the tracks uploaded to the bands server and mix them. The name of this band was called “Knights of Rock” however again with no material released or complete recordings and the fact that each of us lived in different time zones proved to be too hard to maintain continuity so this idea was disbanded and again with no results other than lyrics to future songs.
2014-2016
Mike Tait moved back to Katy, Texas and began completing more lyrics to more songs with over 80 song lyrics written down complete with verse and chorus to each he felt it was time to get his music recorded so he began buying equipment and instruments which he had to learn how to play such as Bass and Drums.
20017-2020
2017 Mike Tait moved to Moss Point Mississippi, there he built a full home studio out of a spare bedroom and began learning to play drums and start recording tracks for the first album and took the partial name from the previous online band name “Knights of Rock” and settled with the current and final name “Knight Avenger” with the band name now in place it was time to start recording tracks and complete songs.
2020-2024
Recording sessions for the first album began in 2020 which led to 43 songs recorded which only 11 were chosen for the first record for the digital version of the album and 12 songs for the CD version of the album . Leaving enough recorded songs for future album releases which several are currently in the final stages for the second release.
2025-Present
Songs for the first release were sent to TheSoundLAB for mixing and mastering with a scheduled release date of 11-24-25 for the self-titled album Knight Avenger and the first single “Rock U Hard Tonight” on November 17th 2025.
The logo on the cover is actually the initials for Mike Tait – MWT
