Signed to Capitol

After attending the Evergreen State College for two years, Wozniak moved east to New York , in order to work with multi-instrumentalist producer Jared Kotler, who John had known from suburban Philadelphia. Jared believed in John’s songwriting talent and put together money with his cousin Jeff White in order to pay for and produce the duo, along with studio musician Glenn Braver(bassist) to record at Sabella Recording Studios in nearby Roslyn, New York. After hearing the two records worth of material Jared produced of John’s songs, Capitol Records became interested in the music. Kurt Rosenwinkel , a mutual friend, introduced bassist Dylan Keefe to John Wozniak and Marcy Playground began performing in NYC. The band was signed to Capitol in 1995 and they performed a series of NYC club dates that would be the first incarnation of Marcy Playground as a band. Personal problems between John and Jared reached a peak after a year of playing the New York music scene and drummer Dan Rieser was brought in to replace Jared whose interest was producing other artists. The self-titled album was released in 1997, with the first single, “Poppies”, released soon after.