The Best Painkiller was a power pop/ rock and roll band from New London, Connecticut, United States. They began their twenty year stride in 1979 with their upbeat, rhythmic, and powerful music. The five members of the group were enthralled and felt drawn to music having grown up listening to the genres of the 60s and 70s. When they had all graduated high school around the same time in the late 70s, their strong passions for music brought them together like satellites trapped in a gravitational pull. Once together as a band, they would plan to fuse all of their favorite music groups from the British Invasion and American groups of the 60s and 70s into one compilation per song.

The group that began its slow rise to fame, The Best Painkiller members came together as local friends in the port town of New London, Connecticut. The members of the group give the most credit to their band leader, Randall Richmond, for getting them all together to form a group that would last two long decades. It was in April of 1979 when it is said by band member, Peter Carson that, "We were all sitting around Randy's television one Saturday night, and all of a sudden, he jumped up from his chair and pitched his idea for the group. It was a week from then that we actually started jammin' together at Eric's house." Randall Richmond wanted his group to be everything a band could possibly be having grown up listening to the genres of the 60s which he enjoyed the most. The set goal of the group was to be able to combine all of the members' favorite kinds of music into the songs that they would soon write. It is mentioned that the idea of the group name, "The Best Painkiller", was the creation of band member, Greg Nestle, who described the name to be "...quite accurate to the healing that music can do to you if you listen to it when sick, achy, sad, or depressed." Nestle compared the use of a painkiller like lithium or any other pain reliever to just listening of music.

By the summer of '79, they took to the streets of New London to start performing some of their favorite hits from the past. Songs like Don't Worry Baby by the Beach Boys, Eight Days a Week by the Beatles, Go All the Way by the Raspberries, and much much more were performed by the group when they first started.

The Best Painkiller was greatly influenced by the British Invasion music groups and dozens of the major American music groups of the 1960s. When music began to change going into the 1970s, the members took shines to the era's new range of sounds. By 1979, they had a wide variety choices to pick from when it came time to pick styles for the band to play. They had not started recording their written compositions until they were accepted by the independent label, Recon, in 1982. The groups that were the sparks to this group's fiery spirit were such greats as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, the Hollies, Badfinger, The Raspberries, Led Zeppelin, ACDC, and Pink Floyd.

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