Mike “Bam-Bam” Sversvold, original drummer for Phoenix hardcore/skate punk vets JFA, has passed away. The band broke the sad news by posting the above picture and writing: “Rest in peace Michael ‘Bam-Bam’ Sversvold, the best dang 80s Skate Rock drummer, bar none. Seen here cruising some outer Phoenix banks in combat boots after JFA practice, circa 1983.”
No cause of death has been given, but Mike had dealt with a variety of health problems that led him to stop drumming in 2020. He told Phoenix New Times that year, “I need to get my health together for a while. I’ve got really bad arthritis, and I have vertigo. I blacked out last summer and fell onto some gravel. I woke up with second-degree burns. I walk with a cane now. I do plan to get up and play drums again someday. I’ve been playing drums since I was 10.”
That same article also reminisces about his early years:
Sversvold started hanging out at local skate parks. All the kids he knew there made him play air drums to whatever music came over the PA — Ramones, The Clash, Sex Pistols. “It was truth in the lyrics,” he said. “There was no posing, it was all attitude — what pisses us off, what we like. Skateboarding and punk joined hands and became brothers.”
In the mosh pit at an underground show, a kid named Don Pendleton knocked Sversvold into a stack of metal chairs. Afterward, they got to talking. Pendleton needed a drummer for his band. “That’s kind of how JFA started.”
[…] People started calling him Bam Bam after the first JFA show. “I was in Mighty Sphincter and JFA at the same time,” he said. “I’d go to rehearsal for one band, and from there I’d go right to rehearsal with another one. Then I’d eat something and do a show with whatever other band I was playing with. Wild times.”
In addition to JFA and Mighty Sphincter, Mike also played in Rabid Rabbit, The Harvest, Lifesize Monsters, Soothsayer, and more.
Rest in peace, Bam-Bam.
https://twitter.com/lateration/status/1790543012834975931
https://twitter.com/SuburbanVoice/status/1790226202478755941