Ben Phillips, Mark Damon, and Jamie Perkins Were ‘Famous’ Before ‘The Pretty Reckless’ [AUDIO, VIDEO]

The Pretty Reckless are a band on the rise. With the release of "Going to Hell" and the first single "Heaven Knows", the band is riding high on chart success and radio airplay, with even more success sure to come.

By now, those familiar with The Pretty Reckless are also familiar with the past of the focal point of the band, Taylor Momsen. You know the spiel - Taylor was Cindy Lou Who in Jim Carey's "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and Jenny Humphrey in TV's "Gossip Girl". Then she gave it all up for the life of a musician. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But what about the guys in the band? Guitarist Ben Phillips, bassist Mark Damon, and drummer Jamie Perkins?

It's hard to find a lot of information on these guys, but I managed to discover that Ben Phillips had a few bands before he was recruited by Momsen/TPR producer Kato Khandwala, most notably, The Ben Phillips Band.

You can check out samples from the Ben Phillips Band's only offering "Freak Like Me" at allmusic.com, or order a copy from amazon.com (Hurry! Only a couple left!).

Check out Ben solo here, doing a cover of The Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive",

In 2006, Phillips hooked up with Damon and Perkins in a band called Famous, a band that achieved a certain amount of notoriety around their native New York City. They released one album "All the Wicked", of which R. Scott Bolton of roughedge.com wrote,

"All the Wicked" is a solid rock'n'roll record in the vein of Audioslave and, to a lesser degree, Soundgarden. The songs here have just a hint of grunginess about them, but never enough so that you'd think of them as grunge music. They never quite reach into heavy metal territory, either, staying instead closer to an adult hard rock sound that again brings to mind Audioslave or perhaps Velvet Revolver.

The guitars are heavy and driving throughout and the atmosphere of the entire album is disquieting, almost sinister. Lead vocalist Ben Phillips, like Chris Cornell, has one of those voices with which he can sing sweetly at times but really belt it out when necessary."

It's a pretty damn good album. Want a copy? Buy it from amazon.com. Like the Ben Phillips Band CD, there are only a few available...if you want one, get it soon!

Here's a preview of what you can expect:

You can see why Kato introduced the whole band to Taylor, rather than piecemeal a band together from studio musicians. She's fronting a real band. It's not Taylor Momsen and a bunch of hired hands. It's The Pretty Reckless, and they're making history together.