The trio of friends decided to be a band. Adam and Ned put their punk rock brains together and came up with the name Anti-Everything. The name is a little ridiculous (this is how the teenage mind works) but it was sounded kind of cool so it stuck around for awhile. Once John was able to practice drums on his own time he improved immensely but it still took him awhile to be able to coordinate his hi-hat arm. There was a stretch of time between spring and summer where if John had to play a faster part of a song or something more complex his drumming dropped to just a snare and bass drum. At that point there was a question of who would do vocals for the band. Until this point John had really done the only singing but that certainly wasn't an option now, especially with him barley getting a handle on the drums. Adam thought he could give it a shot and even though that was met with some skepticism, any doubt was immediately extinguished when the trio tried to play Nirvana's rendition of the Wipers' D-7. John and Ned were completely blown away and Adam may have even surprised himself. They had found their vocalist. 
In the summer of 1998 Ned got some information about a local battle of the bands being held at Gardner field Denville NJ later in the season and Anti-Everything decided they would try their damnedest to play. But first they had to send in a submission tape to get accepted. For some reason they decided to see if they could learn Helmet's "Unsung" and use that as the song for the submission. John spent a couple of days in his room playing along to it on his boombox and was confident that he could do it well enough to tape it. One weekend at Adam's place in PA they decided to give it a go. Using Adam's little brother's Playskool tape recorder (this device was great because it had two microphones coming off each side, effectively creating two inputs, so you could point one at one area and stretch the other to a different area of the room getting a more balance sound than using a single mic. The only problem was to activate the mic you had to push and hold a spring button so in order for the mics to be "on" the buttons had to get taped down) they set up their studio and proceeded to record the track. After some time being crammed in Adam's tiny room in scorching summer heat with loud music blaring and probably dehydrated John developed a migraine. He had to cool down in the dark of Adam's parents air conditioned room. John thought he was down for the count and had suggested Adam play the drum part and reamp it through Adam's stereo (a method they had used in the past to record Skittlebrow) to play along to. Adam wanted John to do it and luckily his symptoms subsided. They went at it again and finally got a reasonable take on tape. The yellow cassette tape was dubbed with the song on both sides, respectably labeled "World Once" and "World Twice" shipped off to the powers that be. Sadly they did not keep a copy for themselves because now, one can only wonder what that sounded like.
The tape must've sounded decent enough because they got accepted to the battle of the bands. In August of 1998 Anti-Everything played it's first and only show. The line up that evening was a band called The Eight Balls, Naked Under Our Clothes, Anti- Everything, and a fourth band that had repeating members from the first band. The boys decided on just 4 songs for their set that evening (probably because that was all they could handle in the short time that had to prepare) Floyd The Barber by Nirvana, D-7 by the Wipers but played as Nirvana covered it, and what is recalled to be two original songs (memories can't confirm what they were but popular opinion says misperception and maybe interval) The band was obviously in it's infancy so playing live for the first time was extremely exciting but also anxiety provoking. There were a lot of nerves that night especially from John who had not been playing drums that long. To make matters worse when they got to the show he was greeted by the drummers from the other bands who wanted to show off their drum kits and see which one John preferred using. Both drummers had enormous set ups that would be fitting on stage at a Rush concert. John didn't really care which one he used because most of the time he was going to using just the bass and snare drum which made the massive kits all the more intimidating. The first two bands played to positive fanfare. They were both made up of well rounded musicians that were definitely doing this for a lot longer (one kid's dad was in the band) than the boys in Anti-Everything. When it came time for their set John definitely had nerves the worst and stepping behind that giant kit did not help. Before they started Adam offered him some advice to say don't worry about the giant kit and those other drummers "just hit the drums as hard as you can". That's exactly what he did (If you've ever seen John play live and you've ever thought that guy is playing too loud, this is the reason why. Adam created that monster. ) The band made it through the set with no issues and to reasonable crowd reaction. John navigated the giant drum kit well enough even working in some cymbal crashes in Floyd The Barber and recovering from dropping a stick by grabbing another from a conveniently placed stick holder on the hi-hat stand. At the end of the show there were 3 prizes to be awarded. First and second place awards went to the first two bands and third place went to Anti-Everything (this was probably a sympathy award since the 4th band was made up of members of first bands) which was a $100 gift card to Richie's Music Center. The band was ecstatic with their win and immediately spent most of the winnings on upgrades to Adam's orange sparkle ludwig drum kit (which is what John used in the band). They got a new head for the bass drum, a black front head for the bass drum, a hoop for the front of the bass drum to hold the new head on (up until the the front was wide open with not head or hardware), 4 sets of lugs and claws to hold the new hoop on, a drum key and nice new set of drumsticks. They really got their money's worth as the black bass drum head was what John used throughout Khantra's entire career, sporting 3 logo changes until it finally ripped. The rim of that head is still on John's yellow pearl kit today. The hoop (which they got at a good price because it had random green sleeve) is still used on Adams current drum kit today.
With their recently upgraded equipment and one show under their belt they were now a fully fledged band. Adam moved back to NJ in the fall so he could continue to go to school here. This meant they could practice music on a regular basis and they did exactly that. Practice headquarters was moved to Ned's basement in White Meadow Lake and they would practice everyday after school, pushing themselves to be better, faster, and tighter. One day after school whilst skateboarding on Algonquin Ave the guys discussed not being happy with the band name, Anti-Everything was a bit much and maybe they should reign it in and come up with something better. Ned suggested Contra, still coming from the prefix anti or against. Everybody liked it. It had a more concise powerful ring to it. From that moment forward they were CONTRA.
Not long after that while hanging out exploring East Stroudsburg one weekend the boys stumbled into what was a newer music venue in the area called Bizmo's. Inside they met Seth W. a musician who worked there at the time. They inquired about how somebody went about playing at this venue. Much to their favor, the venue was looking for acts to fill open dates and Contra the took the first one they could get. Seth W. booked Contra's first gig for Wednesday night, November 11th, 1998.
