It was a sticky August night in 1995. The mosquitos circled hungrily in the humid Toronto air as Carter L. Bays and Josh Arthurs stumbled their way through the doorway into the house, reeling after a long night of drinking Southern Comfort, smoking cigarettes, and singing the blues in a little dive so small the cockroaches bussed tables. Josh was the one they call the Toronto Tornado, the fastest-rising star on the Ontario Blues horizon. He had a slide that could melt iron, and a tone that could launch a thousand Cadillacs. Carter, a footloose drifter with nothing in his pocket but a nickel, a nail, and a Hohner Blues Harp, had a voice that simmered like black eyed peas in a kettle.
They were tired, but in that wide-eyed, frantic way that only comes at two in the morning. Next to the house was the city park, glowing incandescantly under the lights from the street. Not quite ready to submit to the bourbon banshee's lullaby, Josh and Carter stripped down to their shorts, grabbed a guitar, and headed off to the picnic table. Josh played guitar and Carter sang, and that night a sound was born. It was unmistakable; the world had heard it before. It had come from the saloons of Beale Street and the French Quarter. Had come from the subways and street corners of New York City. It had come from the backwoods of Macon, Georgia. It was SOUL, and Josh and Carter knew it. It was an Ennunciation. A call to arms. That night, as the strains of "Knock on Wood" and "Ole Man Trouble" lilted through the thick summer Ontario air, the Testostertones were born.
From that point on, the wheels turned as if pedalled by some higher power. Upon returning to Wesleyan University in Middletown Connecticut that fall, Josh and Carter recruited Craig "Tom-Tom" Thomas, a shifty-eyed, half crazed drum machine, 
well-known for his manic assaults on the skins and the cymbals. An alterna-rocker at heart, Craig was quickly courted away from Janes Addiction towards the realms of Booker T. and the MGs with some smooth talking by Josh and Carter and a healthy dose of SoCo ("Liquid Soul," as it has come to be known). 
Next came Nick "Cole Slaw" Coleman, a keyboard player with a penchant for wearing Santa Claus hats and doing math, threw out all of his Orbital and NIN tapes after one listen to "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles. Then Josh Suniewick, the bass playing cassa nova whose silky grooves have captured the hearts and libidos of young girls everywhere, signed on. The Testostertones Rhythm Section was complete.
But something was missing. Josh knew it, Carter knew it, Nick knew it, and the other Josh knew it. (Craig had no clue). Then, one night, Carter was awakened from a peaceful slumber by the jarring ring of a telephone. Pulling himself from sweet dreams of big legged women, Carter answered with a sedated, "Hello?" "Is this Carter 'Lord Have Mercy' Bays?" asked a mysterious voice. "You got that right, Jack," Carter replied. "Who's this?" The voice answered, without hesitation, "This is Chris Gaither, the RA of R&B, alto sax blower from the Butterfield Horns."
Carter sat up in bed with a start. THE Butterfield Horns? He couldn't believe it. The Butterfield horns were the number one soul horn section in Connecticut. Gaither, a slick, goateed character who taught Maceo Parker to change a reed, was called the Resident Advisor of Soul because if you needed a pamphlet on soul, you went to him.
The next day, the Butterfield Horns came and sat in with the Testostertones. Joining Gaither was Dave "Little Big Horn" Matus,
the inspiration for the Bleeding Gums Murphy character on the Simpsons. Matus never did anything
without his baritone sax. He even slept with it. And then of course there was Pat "Detroit" Butler, the Al Capone of the Slide Trombone. He used to live in Detroit until he got run out of town for having too much soul.
What followed that day was nothing less than the Rebirth of Soul. The Testostertones, making their debut at an inconspicuous frat party on October 12, 1995, went on to hypnotize the entire Wesleyan University campus with their silky grooves, their heart-pounding soul-sockers, their gut-wrenching ballads, and their fantastic celebrations of noise. With the addition of "Jersey" Jake Eisenstein, a man who could open the gates of heaven with one note from his sweet trumpet, The Testostertones cemented their position as nothing less than the Eighth Wonder of The World, The Hardest Working Band in Connecticut, and the Second Coming of Soul.