Marcy Playground Whatever Happened To The Band Behind Sex & Candy

Marcy Playground: Whatever happened to the band behind the huge hit single sex and candy. 0:00 - Introduction 0:21: John Wozniak's Early Years 3:07 - Marcy Playground's Formation 4:30 - Second Chance For The Band 7:01 - Sophomore Slump 8:42 - Later Years Have a video request or a topic you'd like to see us cover? Fill out our google form! https://bit.ly/3stnXlN -----GET A SECRET VIDEO PLAYLIST----- Sign up for email news and get a link to my secret playlist with 10 of my best stories. https://bit.ly/3emyloM -----CONNECT ON SOCIAL----- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rocknrolltruestories Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RNRTrueStories Twitter: https://twitter.com/rocktruestories Blog: www.rockandrolltruestories.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RNRTrueStories #sexandcandy #marcyplayground #johnwozniak I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos. If there’s one song that comes to my mind from the late 90’s it’s Marcy Playground’s huge hit “Sex and Candy.” While the song was all over rock radio when i was a teenager, what eer happened to the band afterwards. Were they truly a one-hit wonder? That’s what were going to talk about in today’s video. The story of the band really begins with frontman and guitarist John Wozniak who was born in minneapolis. In the late 70’s his education involved attending an experiment “hippie” school called Marcy Open Grade school. According to MTV, Wozniak was bullied and anytime he went to the playground, bullies would pick on him and beat him up. This forced Wozniak to stay inside the school at all times and think of what he would do if he were one of the “cool kids.’ it was no surprise that when he started a band years later he would name it marcy playground and a lot of the songs he wrote were inspired by his childhood. He would tell ampers.org that his first introduction to playing music came when he was living in minneapolis and went to a yard sale and saw a record called Bobby Vinton sings the newest hits and got his mother to buy it for him. Within a year or so, he soon started going over his father’s music collection from the 50’s which he found up in his family's attic. By the age of13 he was given a guitar by a close family member and that’s when he started to write his own songs. In fact the first song he ever wrote was a track called Rebel Sodville, which would appear on Marcy Playground’s second record Shapeshifter. That school, wasn’t the last of the hippie lifestyle Wozniak would experience as he would tell the morning call newspaper he followed the grateful dead for 6 years starting at the age of 14 in 1984. To support his lifestyle at the time, he would sell tabs of LSD and hard boiled eggs. He would tell the newspaper that he took more than 100 acid trips revealing. "I was like a guru,". I loved the stuff, but after a while I had to stop. It was messing up my brain chemistry. Eventually it built up this buffer between myself and reality.". Wozniak would cite Neil Young, Paul Simon, and Van Morrison as his musical influences. But, In addition to that, It wasn’t a surprise that the Seattle music scene was a huge influence on Wozniak as well m as in the early 90’s he attended evergreen college in olympia washington. In fact he played music in the same rehearsal space as Nirvana used to. He would tell News Times paper about his time in Seattle saying"I would see Courtney Love at the Capitol Theater and I sat next to Dave Grohl while the Breeders were doing a show," Wozniak recalled. "They were just around all the time -- those people. The Melvins were always in town; I mean, those guys are from there. It was a really close-knit musical scene that revolved around K Records and Kill Rock Stars and the Capitol Theater." While attending evergreen college he wrote and recorded his first album called Zog BogBean in 1990 with the help of his then girlfriend in his bedroom. Several of the songs off the record would end up on Marcy Playground’s later albums. And he would sell copies of the record for $6 apiece at a record store in the city and even sent a copy to Don Rubin , who was the head of A&R for EMI, who loved the album . He would encourage Wozniak to leave school, come to new york and form a band. He did just that. In 1994 Wozniak would move to New York City and meet to would meet an old high school classmate of his a drummer named Jared Kotler. They would decide to form a band along with bassist Dylan Keefe who they met through a mutual friend. The band would play a showcase for record label executives at EMI and they would be signed shortly afterwards. Wozniak would tell the News Times “After we played, they were like, 'OK, let's make a record!' That was it. We never played a show before. They just really liked the music. And I guess they thought we were good enough at p

Added 15 Apr 2026