Balboa Fun*Zone

Balboa Fun*Zone is the third studio album by the American punk rock band the Adolescents, released in 1988 on Triple X Records. Titled after the Balboa Fun Zone amusement area of Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach, it is the band's only album recorded without singer Tony Brandenburg, who had left the group the prior year. Electing not to replace him, guitarist Rikk Agnew and bassist Steve Soto alternated lead vocals on Balboa Fun*Zone. The album also features the return of original Adolescents guitarist Frank Agnew (Rikk Agnew's younger brother), who had been absent from their prior album, 1987's Brats in Battalions. Balboa Fun*Zone is also the final Adolescents studio album to include Rikk Agnew and drummer Sandy Hanson. The band broke up in April 1989, reuniting in later years with different lineups. Background and recording The Adolescents had spent much of 1987 touring in support of their second album, Brats in Battalions, but by the end of that year singer Tony Brandenburg and guitarist Dan Colburn both left the band. Brandenburg stated in 1989, "I was interested in other things (I had joined another band, the Flower Leperds), and the Adolescents touring cut into my school work". Bassist Steve Soto said there were also disagreements between Brandenburg and the other band members over taking the band's music in a more melodic direction. Soto, guitarist Rikk Agnew, and drummer Sandy Hanson decided to continue as the Adolescents, with Soto and Agnew sharing lead vocal duties. They recruited guitarist Paul Casey, who left after a few months of touring. Rikk's younger brother Frank Agnew, who had been one of the band's founding guitarists and had left a few months after their 1986 reunion, rejoined the group. Soto and Rikk Agnew wrote the material for the band's next album, moving away from the Adolescents' prior hardcore punk sound and themes of politics and adolescent desperation in favor of exploring more openly melodic pop rock influences and writing songs that reflected their personal experiences. "Punk, which started out as being a totally liberating kind of music, can put a lock on you", Soto said. Agnew agreed: "The original idea of punk was individuality and breaking limits.