20/20 was formed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by high school friends Steve Allen (guitar, vocals) and Ron Flynt (bass, vocals). They relocated to Los Angeles in 1977, after fellow Tulsa natives Phil Seymour and Dwight Twilley met with success.
There they added Mike Gallo – who had come from Buffalo with pretty much the same goals and similar musical idols – on drums and began playing local clubs.
After several months of secret rehearsals, they made their first public appearance in front of a packed house at the Whisky-a-Go-Go, doing two unannounced songs in the midst of a Bomp!-sponsored New Wave Weekend.
Greg Shaw, the head of Bomp! Records was impressed with their highly charged power pop and signed them to his label in 1978. The resulting single, Under the Freeway, created enough interest in the band to secure a deal with Portrait Records.
They added keyboardist Chris Sylgali and recorded their first, self-titled, LP. The single Cheri saw some minor regional success, but the album was virtually ignored apart from critical acclaim.
The follow-up, Look Out! (1981), was equally strong but again failed.
The band was dropped by Portrait in 1982 and effectively disbanded. They returned in 1983 with the independently released Sex Trap, but by this time, their sound was out of style and the band finally called it quits.
A revived interest in the powerpop genre in the 1990s inspired the band to reunite as time-weathered adults, contributing a few new songs to Big Deal’s Yellow Pills compilations and recording a new album, 4 Day Tornado for the fall of 1995.
Steve Allen
Guitar, keyboards, vocals
Ron Flynt
Bass, keyboards, vocals
Chris Silagyi
Keyboards, guitar, vocals
Mike Gallo
Drums, vocals, keyboards
Joel Turrisi
Drums
Dean Korth
Drums
Bill Belknap
Drums
