The Barbarians were formed in the summer of 1964 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, by original members Victor "Moulty" Moulton, Bruce Benson, Ronnie Enos, and Jerry Causi.
[2] The band was quickly assembled by Moulton, who had agreed to do a gig at The Rumpus Room, an ex-jazz club where his cousin worked.
Show (performing "Hey Little Bird") alongside other artists such as The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, Lesley Gore, Chuck Berry, James Brown & The Famous Flames, The Miracles, and Marvin Gaye.
[5][7] A later, minor hit, entitled "Moulty", was a humorous and melodramatic autobiographical song chronicling the drummer's life and the loss of his hand.
In 1965, Boston guitarist Geoffrey Morris replaced Ronnie Enos on lead guitar, providing the arrangement of "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?," a song parodying the trend towards long hair popularized by British Invasion rock acts, such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, which was regarded at the time by parents as a bad influence on young males.
They had evolved to combine martial arts and music by rigorously rehearsing nearly every day at a Karate dojo owned by Moulton's brother-in-law.