The band was formed by singer Dan Hortter in
Los Angeles in April 1966. Hortter had been a member of a
Torrance-based
surf rock band, the Driftones, who had just split up. At a performance by his friends in another band,
the Palace Guard (whose drummer was
Emitt Rhodes), at the
Hullabaloo club in
Hollywood, he joined the group onstage to play harmonica and sing "
I'm a Man". His performance so impressed club owner Gary Bookasta that he invited Hortter to bring his own band to support
The Newbeats two weeks later. Hortter recruited guitarists John Knox and Larry Tyre, bassist Herby Ratzloff, and drummer Terry Rae (formerly of the Driftones) to play the gig. Rae was then replaced by Dan Gorman, and the group changed its name to become The Yellow Payges. They began playing regularly at the Hullabaloo, and Bookasta became their manager. There were further personnel changes. Knox and Tyre left and were replaced by Bob Norsoph and Randy Carlisle; and Mike Rummans replaced Ratzloff. When Norsoph and Carlisle themselves left, Rummans moved to guitar and Jim Lanham came in on bass; he was soon replaced in turn by Teddy Rooney, the son of actor
Mickey Rooney. In 1967, the group released their debut single, "Never See the Good in Me" on the Showplace label, a subsidiary of
Cameo-Parkway Records. Its local success, together with that of follow-up "Jezebel", resulted in the band signing with
Uni Records. They released the single "Our Time Is Running Out", and the group toured the US as part of
Dick Clark's ''Happening '67'' package tour of 45 cities in 45 days. The group were then hired to appear in a series of commercials for
AT&T's
Yellow Pages, which, according to writer Jason Ankeny at
Allmusic, "effectively destroy[ed] their credibility and their momentum". According to Hortter, "We were put in these hideous yellow satin ruffled shirts with black velvet pants, and did these ridiculous commercials. It pretty much destroyed everything we worked so hard to accomplish." The group broke up in late 1970, during the recording of their second LP. == Later activities ==