Harley Poe
American musical group

Harley Poe is an American folk punk band formed in Kokomo, Indiana. Originating from the members of Christian punk band Calibretto 13 after it disbanded, the band has released 15 albums, including Satan, Sex and No Regrets, which was voted best album of 2012 by Rue Morgue. Described as "murder folk" and "extremely dark", their lyrics focus on horror film and related topics.
History
Harley Poe began from frontman Joseph Whiteford's previous band, Calibretto 13 (later Calibretto). Soon before Calibretto 13 ended, Whiteford wanted to create a band that would sing about horror film themes; after Calibretto 13's label ended their contract and the band broke up, he started Harley Poe. The origin of the band's name is dubious; Whiteford has said that he "always give[s] a different answer... because it's kind of lame". He has variously claimed that he "thought it had a good ring to it" and wanted the band's name to be a person's name, that "Harley" came from Ed Harley in the movie Pumpkinhead and "Poe" from the last name of one of Whiteford's role models at a church group, or that Harley Poe was the name of a neighbour of Whiteford's that was murdered by his friends in his youth.
In 2012, Harley Poe released Satan, Sex and No Regrets on Chain Smoking Records, which was voted best album of the year by Rue Morgue.
In 2015, Whiteford announced that the band would be going on a hiatus, playing their final show before the hiatus on Halloween night that year.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harley Poe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.