The Ataris
American punk rock band
The Ataris are an American punk rock band from Anderson, Indiana. Formed in 1996, they released five studio albums between 1997 and 2007. Their best-selling album is their major label debut album So Long, Astoria (2003), which was certified gold. Their high-charting single is their cover of Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" from So Long, Astoria. The only constant member throughout their history has been singer/songwriter/guitarist Kristopher "Kris" Roe.
The staff of Consequence ranked the band at number 37 on their list of "The 100 Best Pop Punk Bands" in 2019. In 2025, Terry Bezer of Screen Rant stated the opinion that the band was underrated, referring to "In This Diary" as "one of the best pop-punk songs ever written."
History
Kung Fu Records (1996–2001)
Formed on November 1, 1996, and with the band's name a reference to the large collection of Atari video game cartridges of Roe, the band originally consisted of singer, songwriter, and guitarist Kristopher Roe and guitarist Jasin Thomason. Using a 4-track, Roe wrote and recorded demos in his bedroom, using a drum machine while he searched for a full-time drummer. The band's first big break came in 1996 when Roe attended a show at the club Bogart's in Cincinnati, where Thomason passed one of the band's demo tapes to a roadie from the band. The roadie gave the tape to Joe Escalante, bassist from the band the Vandals who owned their own label, Kung Fu Records.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1373222. VIAF identifies the subject as 135174235. The Library of Congress control number is n2002076757. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1997, 2007 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Ataris” 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.