Kris Roe
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Kristopher James Roe (born 1978 in Anderson, Indiana) is the singer and the guitarist of the group The Ataris, who formed in 1994. He currently resides in Santa Barbara, California. Roe founded the group when he gave a demo tape to Vandals bass player Joey Escalante, who was so impressed by Roe's material that he asked Roe to put together a full band. In response, Roe dropped out of high school and moved to California in search of band members.
He is married to Denice Roe (whom he writes songs about frequently), and has one daughter, Starla, from his first marriage, about whom he wrote The Saddest Song -- in which he and Ataris bass player Mike Davenport send apologetic pleas to their children to forgive them for not being around as they grow up.
Roe is also known for the level of maturity with which he writes and delivers lyrics. "In a lot of my lyrics," Kris reveals, "I like to encode a lot of hidden messages and whatnot. I like our fans to read into things. I feel that our fans are smart and I don't want to give them just a bunch of surface lyrics that you can take at face value."