H2O (American band)
American hardcore punk band

H2O is an American hardcore punk band formed in New York City in 1994.
History
Formation and the Epitaph years (1994–2000)
While touring as a roadie for Sick of It All, Toby Morse would sometimes sing with the band during encores. In late 1994 Morse decided to start his own band and formed H2O on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with Rusty Pistachio and Eric Rice. The band included his brother, Todd Morse, and Todd Friend, both formerly members of Outcrowd, who had released the albums New Music Solution (1988), Weathered (1992) and Healer (1994). The band toured relentlessly through most of 1995 and 1996, opening up for almost every hardcore band that hit the east coast, including an opening slot on a Rancid bill, at the Roseland Ballroom, opening for Quicksand on Long Island and a summer 1995 European Tour opening for Sick of It All and CIV. Another huge early show was when the band opened for No Doubt at Tramps (NYC) on Easter in 1996.
In January 1996 H2O recorded their self-titled album at Brielle Studios-NYC, releasing it in May of the same year. The album was basically all the songs they had and would play out at the time. That summer, the band toured with Shelter and Murphy's Law. In October, H2O performed at CBGB's and recorded a video for "Family Tree". They also toured with Social Distortion.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q584282. VIAF identifies the subject as 142692121. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2000, 1988 and 1992.
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This entry incorporates text from “H2O (American band)” 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.