BIO:
The Phantom of the Caution is the brainchild of Nick Meyers (CEO and Creator of 717 Entertainment). Upon Booking the comedy, punk rock and Grammy nominated act Green Jelly he forged a friendship with vocalist and creator Bill Manspeaker. After the first performance of Green Jelly at a 717 Entertainment show (which is a whole story in itself) the two kept in touch though facebook messenger. Upon hearing the concept of Bill, in which he simply enlists fans in each city to learn the songs and play in the band Nick thought “Hey I play guitar”. Quick backstory: Bill lives in California and flies each weekend (pre pandemic of course) on a Thursday to a part of the states and plays 3 nights of shows in that vicinity. His band consists of fans in that region who learn the songs and then show up and play. Bill comes up w/ the set-lists and structure and the members play a show together. Its interesting because when you see a Green Jelly show you’re seeing people playing together on stage for the very first time. Back to the subject at hand, upon discussions w/ Bill it became evident that Nick wanted to get back on stage for the first time in nearly 20 years. That opportunity arose when the band was given the chance to open for Insane Clown Posse on some dates in the fall/winter of 2019.
In October of 2019 Green Jelly was set to open for Insane Clown Posse up in New York on a Thursday and Reading PA the following evening. Nick was given the honor of playing guitar on stage for the first time since 1997, not only on stage but in a Grammy nominated act opening for a extremely known and successful hip hop duo. Realizing most members have some sort of personality in the band Nick decided to head to Spirit Halloween looking for some sort of outfit. The search was rather unsuccessful as he came home w/ only a Phantom of the Opera mask and not much else. The day of the show came and he still hadn’t come up w/ anything. Out of nowhere the idea of taping caution tape to the phantom mask came about and to add to it a blue blazer for extra effect. The drive up was when the inspiration for the name. He met up w/ Trivia Vince, Gabe and his father in Scranton PA and they road tripped up to NY.
The show went off as most Jelly shows do completely successfully as did the second night in Reading PA. Nick booked the band in January of 2020 in Scranton and his hometown of Harrisburg PA where he was able to play in front of his friends and family. The second run of shows in Scranton and Harrisburg is where the Bloody coat debuted and filled out the look. The rest as they say is history.