The band formed at the beginning of year 2001, after its founders, Jo (bass) and Craig (guitars), had been collaborating for a couple of years already helping each other to set up their respective home studios and strumming/writing together some material. Having both been in several bands in the past years, it has been quite easy to feel the need to complete the line-up once that both the studios and the songs were developing smoothly.

In the first days of the existence of the band, the drummer Pietro joined the ranks by word of mouth, and with a very lucky coincidence, Jo found a few days later on a paper the ad of a singer looking for a band. So also Alex jumped on board. With this line up the band went on to practice and fine tune the material for the first cd, which should have been released as soon as possible. The sound of the band was heavily influenced by the first wave of glam influenced punk rock of the Max's Kansas City and CBGB in New York in the seventies, stuff like Dictators, early Blondie, Ramones, Johnny Thunder's Heartbreakers, Dead Boys, even Television and Velvet Underground, with a touch of dark overtones a'la Lords of the New Church.

But something beyond the band's control happened, and Alex had to suddenly quit the band in May for personal issues. The album's backing tracks had almost been all recorded and the band was now without a lead vocalist. Jo had kept in his file another ad he had seen a few months earlier, and decided to immediately contact the guy as soon as he received the bad news from Alex. So Dok got auditioned after a few hours (that's urgency!) and, even if his style was very different from the one the band had been working earlier, he got drafted and brought aboard.

The vocals were switching from a very melodic, Coverdale-ish style to a raw, furious, hc punk influenced alter-ego of the sickest Iggy Pop and Stiv Bators... it MAY have worked, it probably didn't...

Anyway, June saw a very confused Dok record the vocals, and after the summer, the pressing plant finally delivered the first batch of cds to the band. In facts it had been decided to self release the first cd independently, through "Independent Records", a Texan label. The title is "Discrete and powerful" and, in spite of the nasty problems the band had to face to record it and release it, it also got a number of positive reviews, in Usa, Uk, Italy, Spain, Russia, Japan. And the public reaction was quite good as well, as it proves the fact that is now sold out and out of print.

In this period the band is also requested a song for a compilation called "War: no problem" by the Italin underground label "SottoSopra Produzioni". A specially remixed version of "Look in the mirror" from the album is selected.

It is now almost the end of 2001, and the band decide they need a heavier sound. The 70s glam punk sound is often misunderstood by people not fully aware of the genre (at the same time as the connoisseurs go literally crazy about it) and so the guys decide to jump the gun and "crank it up". Seen with a future perspective, as bands such as Strokes, Hives and White Stripes came under the spotlight just a few months later, this might have been a case of being in the right place at the wrong time, but that's life, aint'it???

So exactly one year after the band started its existence, here comes its fifth member, The Dude, a guitarist with experience in many rock and metal bands of the area. The first rehearsals with the new line-up reveal the new direction the band is taking, towards a more melodic, alas heavier and more classic sound, and some differences of opinion start to arise in the band. In March 2002, the band and Dok amicably decide to part ways, due to very different views on the future of the band.

At the same time, while echoes of the first cd still appear on specialized press and on Internet websites and newsgroups, the band appears in April in "Sour Puss ­ The Glitzinet Compilation", released by the notorious glam website in the US with "Not the girl next door", a song from the first cd.

Through the (web)pages of the same Glitzinet, Jo gets to know Harry Kill-Kill, lead singer of Hollywood Killerz. Given the fact that his band are on a hyatus due to some line-up problems, they decide to start a collaboration in order to help the Rockets to write new material.

At the same time, we are now in June, the Official Pocket Rockets website gives away a candy for the band's supporters' ears. Dedicated to the "Rocket Crew", the band's fan club, and with an artwork including the pics of the people who first expressed their support to the band, it is made available for download for a limited time only "For the Crew onlyŠ" an EP containing three live covers and a remix.Vocals on the songs are obviously still Dok's, but here you can have a glimpse of his sarcastic and ferocious attack at its best, that is on live situations.

Between June and September the band, together with Harry, records demos of the song for the next album. Seven songs are recorded, including the first originals written by the new line-up, selected songs from the first cd in more powerful versions, and two covers, "Trash queen" by Wrathchild and "Nobody loves you like I do" by London.

The latter, further to opening a direct link between Jo and one of his lifetime heroes, Lizzie Grey (founder of London together with Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx), also gains the Rockets a support slot to Spiders & Snakes, Lizzie's current band, in their upcoming European Tour.

In September, quite unusual for a band having only available a demo, the band is repeatedly interviewed and broadcasted live on nationwide radio, at further demonstration of the stir caused by the new material. Another label approaches the band and requests a song for a compilation. So on the album "Fuck yeah!" to be released by "8 Records" you will be able to listen soon to "Tears", one of the songs written by the new line-up and recorded with Harry Kill-Kill on vocals.

Autumn and Winter pass on with the band members converting the demo into proper album songs, and writing new material for the album. Everything is being recorded and engineered in Craig's now completely functional home studio and produced and mixed by Craig itself, with the aid of the other guys.

Interest for the band, despite the lack of official releases since months, is at its peak, and it happens quite often to have to decline interviews on magazines/webzines due to the lack of...news! Only some official statements in the form of an informal interview are released to the webzine "Slam!". The task of self-producing for a band is a nice one, but it is also much more time consuming than playing and then letting someone else fiddling with knobs and levers...

A new compilation is released by SanaRecords, including the first album's version of "Wild days, wild nights". Not the band's preferred choice, but being it an album called "Punk & Contaminazioni: vol.II" the new material would not have fitted, and so...

At the beginning of Spring 2003 the album is almost completed. Ten songs have been selected. And Lady Luck gives a (big) helping hand, as Alex, having sorted out his personal problems, pops up again and makes himself available for the golden world of rock'n'roll.

The band takes its time to ponder about the offer (approx three seconds...) and the magic starts again. Having let nasty bugs of bad luck in the past and bygones be bygones, the band as it had been conceived two years earlier is finally together again! Alex immediately re-records all the lead vocal parts and provides valuable help in shaping for best the vocal parts for the newest songs. The result is a solid, enjoyable, powerful but melodic, glammy but innovative, cd whose title is "Rocket Ride".

Now that the album is over, the band focuses on preparing the set list for the gigs coming next Autumn. With all the work, pain and excitement they've been through in these two years, you can imagine how much energy they will be putting in the live shows. Be sure not to miss them if you have the chance!