Going Through the Roof

For some inexplicable reason, we were touring Europe with Kiss in 1996. This was a major tour for us; an opportunity to travel the world and prove to the masses that we were a legitimate rock band, first and foremost. The Kiss crowds were not particularly polite to us, but it was the first time the band was able to travel on this sort of scale. Catering, massages, anything you may want was provided. There was to be no sightseeing due to the location of the venues, and the frequencies of the show, and had I not spent 2 years living in Europe during a stint with the US Army, I may have been disappointed by this.

While in Europe, I heard the first mix of The Freshmen. I remember thinking, “I don’t know, I don’t know…” It was so vastly different from the Jerry Harrison version, that it was hard to hear it as its own entity, without comparisons to the aforementioned version.

We met Mark Neale in a hotel lobby in London. Mark was a video director. He was funny and charming, and we all liked him instantly. He was the one who would direct the video for The Freshmen. It was a few short days later that we were in his studio looking at video tapes and photos of potential girls to play the heroine in the video. After some discussion, we decided it best to leave it in Mark’s hands, and he chose Sarah Toogood, a lovely Brit with a beautiful smile and eyes that were sparkling. I would have no problem playing the role with her, albeit for a few short moments.

We were to shoot the video in 2 days in a London warehouse. I had no idea how important these moments were to be, sitting there with my fancy new haircut and tight v-neck. There were numerous takes, but it felt good each time. Mark had a way of making everyone feel comfortable, even the “blurry” guys in the background (my bandmates). Jack Rovner, VP at RCA, was on hand, and wanted to be sure that we cut an alternative version of the video to fit the Jerry Harrison sleepy version of the song. In hindsight, it was probably a smart move on his part. Back then, it was very annoying. It seemed no one at RCA could make a decision and stick with it.

After we completed the video, we went on to finish the tour with Kiss, and then back to the states to re-group and start up another stateside tour.

I was living in the offices of LMNOPOP, our company, at the time. It was hardly an office building, in fact it was a house near the campus of Michigan State University. I had a room, and in that room I had a crappy stereo and an equally crappy mattress on the floor. The room was always a mess.

I heard Jay and Mac yelling at me one day to come and check something out. There on the screen was the Freshmen video. I had seen it already of course, but this time it felt legitimate. It was not only on MTV, but it also carried those most sought after words. “Buzz Clip”.

Once MTV started playing it, VH1 started playing it. Album sales went through the roof. We had the good fortune of doing yet another version of the video for The Jenny McCarthy Show. Even that version was played all to hell. We played Letterman and Leno. We were rock stars. And for some reason, I was so annoyed by it all.

I couldn’t enjoy this time at all. As much as I wanted to relax and enjoy the ride, I felt like we had to get back into the studio right away and prove that it wasn’t a fluke. ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a one hit wonder’ is all I could think about, even though Photograph went high enough on the charts to dismiss this notion.

The song had been on the air for about 6 months, and it tapered off. The next single was Villains, probably a poor choice. That was my mistake. The label wanted Penny Is Poison. I did not want to follow up The Freshmen with another ballad.

Radio stations wouldn’t add Villains to their playlist because they were still playing The Freshmen. Once, driving through Michigan, I heard it on three different stations at the same time. We were all sick of hearing it, sick of playing it, and most of all, sick of having to explain what it was about. (It wasn’t until years later, when I started to play house concerts and was able to knock down that wall between artist and fan, and actually communicate with people, that I realized how much it affected them. Now, I find joy in playing it, knowing that people are so affected by it.)

We tried everything to get MTV to play the Villains video that we shot with Dean Karr. Dean is a little disturbed in all of the right ways. His idea of taking photos from a crime scene book and recreating them for a video was brilliant. Conceptually, the video was perfect for the song. Edgy, black and white, with a great story. We even looked into getting Don Knotts to be the killer, revealed in the end. Don actually agreed to it, but with a 25k price tag.

As great as that video was, it wasn’t given much of a chance, due to the stalling of the single at radio. If the song doesn’t have legs at radio, chances are, it won’t have legs on MTV. After 5 weeks of pounding on radio stations doors to add the song, KROQ in Los Angeles said that they would add it. We were all excited, until the terms were known to us. It would be in a very limited schedule. I think 2 to 6 am comes to mind. 7 times a week. It really had no chance.

So, I took the hit for that one. It was my insistence that kept Penny Is Poison from being the next single. But I still feel like Penny would have stalled as well. Just not as quickly.

So, 2 full years and some change, touring on the strength of Photograph and The Freshmen. It was a rollicking time for the band. Play a show, party after for an hour or two, get on the bus, have a piece of pizza, drink some more. Get in your bunk for some sleep during the long drive to the next town. Wake up at noon, do some interviews, have a sound check, take a nap, do another show. This was the routine, and it worked. We stayed busy and somewhat focused. We covered most of the U.S. and much of Europe. During these days, I was always writing songs, demoing them in the back lounge of the bus during the day. I was prepared to go into the studio for the follow-up record. But nothing could have prepared us for the Sophomore effort. It would prove to be our most non-creative, difficult time. We were the rock cliche during this period, and like any band that ends up a cliche, we couldn’t see it coming.

A Cup of Tea?

Four months into the release of Photograph, we found ourselves in a predicament. RCA would slap us on the back and say, “It’s a nice position to be in, having too many songs to choose from for the next single!” Indeed, I thought. We certainly delivered one hell of a record, I thought, having written 90% of it. “Could we release every song on the record as a single?” I asked once. “Why not?!?” was the reply that I got from Ron Poore, head of the alternative division. I remember he even offered up a high-five, to which I left him hanging, as the band often did.

I started to believe the hype of Ron Poore. Though I knew that twelve singles was laughably impossible, I did believe that we may have had a Huey Lewis Sports on our hands. This thing could go on forever.

The question was, Cup Of Tea, hard rock anthem, driven by a guitar riff that was like trumpets, signaling the arrival of the king (Scary, but I really thought this…), or Villains, a heavy rock song, more reminiscent of what was on the radio that day. The band chose Cup Of Tea, and geared up for what we believed would be another 6 months of touring on the new single.

After the choice of song had been made, we chose video director Nigel Dick, to write a treatment. He did, and I remember it being interesting enough. But something was different this time out. Revised treatments started showing up. It was clear that the powers that be at RCA were questioning the video’s direction. The idea was: Five band members all work on a individual piece of art work, then, in the end, we pick up our pieces, walk towards each other, turn, and each individual piece of art work joins together to make one massive, amazing piece of art. What no one realized was that none of us could draw, paint, or even discuss art, and what we ended up creating was one massive, amazing piece of shit.

We had just spent $250,000 + on a video that not only had nothing to do with the song, but was really unusable. In an effort to salvage it, I went to the editing bay with our manager, and tried to re-edit the video. I knew as much about editing as I did about art, and it turned out to be the most boring, under lit video that MTV would ever play. Enter RCA’s Vice President Jack Rovner, who wanted effects, and suddenly, his will be done, there were visual effects in the form of split screens, video trails, sped up frames, you name it. And in order to make it interesting, there were over 400 edits.

I watched the video on MTV’s 120 minutes, and wondered what happened. I was surprised that they even played it. As the video went on and on and I became more and more depressed. I was excited that at the end, when Nigel Dick’s name appeared as the director, that people would think that this may be where videos were heading. Nigel was a premier director, and taste maker, and perhaps people would see this as a a video ahead of its time. My optimistic thoughts were deflated, as I saw on the bottom of the credits that the director was actually “Mojo Wurken.” Nigel was clearly so disgusted by the video, the process of working with RCA and the band, that he had taken his name off of it. Good for him.

Cup of Tea, the single, hit the ground at a slow trot, then stalled completely, along with album sales. I remember checking Soundscan, a service that provides sales information every week, and watching the number of sales fall. No worries, though. We were promised by RCA that there were going to be a minimum of at least 5 singles on this record. So, we’ll dust ourselves off, and start the process again.

Reverend Girl was the next choice. The song was a power ballad in 6/8 time, that Kevin Weatherlee of KROQ loved, and thought was the strongest single on the album. We couldn’t go wrong with that one. KROQ would add the song, and all of the other radio stations across the country would be forced to add it as well. Artwork for the single was complete, video directors submitted treatments, and we continued touring, playing for a 300 to 500 hundred people every night. But then, word came down from above, that RCA was nervous again, and that they felt like we should should jump directly to our song, The Freshmen. It was posed as a question to us, though the answer had already been given. In fact, the answer was this: If the next single fails, the album is finished. You’ll go home and start writing a followup record. No Freshmen, no Villains, no Penny Is Poison. I wanted to fight it, but realized that if The Freshmen was not a single, my days as a rock star would soon be over.

I threw up my hands, and let RCA lead the way, not realizing at the time that they were always leading the way. Our input rarely mattered. That was most evident when we were told that we had a meeting with a man I had never even heard of, and he was going to produce another version of The Freshmen, one that was more conducive to alternative radio. “They’re completely insane,” I thought. “The version that is on the album is the hit song!” That version was over 5 minutes long, with a sleepy feel that I hoped would send the masses sleepwalking to the record store to purchase it. “”What about the 200,000 people who already have the album and know that version?” RCA’s answer was “Screw ‘em.” We were going to go into the studio, re-record the song, and strip it into a new pressing. “Ridiculous!” I screamed to no one. Our hands were tied however. We knew that this would be it. The promises of “5 singles, no matter what” were empty at best. We agreed to meet with this “producer” and see what he had to offer.

Jack Joseph Puig had produced Jellyfish, one of our drummer’s favorite bands. Jellyfish was nothing like us. Didn’t sound like us, didn’t look like us, and certainly weren’t mainstream like us. How could this be the right choice for us?

I remember the meeting well. I liked Jack’s honesty and knowledge of music, and most importantly the names of those that he had known in the business. He used words like organic and natural, and described how he wanted to hear the distortion pedal being pressed down in the recording. We were going to sit in a studio and play together as a band live. No building the song from the drums up, like most recordings. If someone sneezed during a take, then dammit, that sneeze would soon be heard on the radio. Ironically, it was a new approach to us. Imagine! We all sit and play as a band and record the song the way it used to be done. No sitting and waiting for the drums to be recorded, then the bass, then all the guitars, then the keys..etc. What was played live together was going to be what ended up on the record. I loved the idea, but was cautious. We’ll see, I thought.

A few weeks, and a canceled leg of the tour later, we were in a Los Angeles studio with Jack Joseph Puig. The studio, Oceanway, was decked out with oriental rugs, hundreds of candles and all kinds of different instruments for us to play around with.

The first 2 days were dedicated to getting the right sound on the drums and guitars and bass. The 3rd day, we all sat in a circle and played the song about 16 times. The 17th time was the take to use. No one minded playing the song so much because this was a unique way for the band to play together. We had gotten away from it. All of us left our egos and agendas at the door, and just played, hoping to capture some magic. And as it turns out, we did.

Diving In

Once Villains was released, the playing field changed dramatically. Gone were the days of driving the van, partying after the shows, and crappy equipment. We now had a tour bus, a crew, and brand new instruments, which were written into the recording budget.

As we played across the country to drum up support for our major label release, the people at RCA records worked on getting the radio stations to “add” the first single, Photograph. It proved to be a long process, months of preparation. It seemed to me that the album was done, why wait for 3 months to put it on the shelves? We were impatient, but waiting turned out to be the right thing to do. Photograph was the most added record when it was released to radio.

I heard it for the first time on the air while driving in Florida. I had a girlfriend at the time, who was coming down to hang out me while we were on a semi successful tour with Seven Mary Three, who’s song Cumbersome was climbing the charts. I had rented a convertible, and felt a pang of guilt as I went to the rental car lot to pick up the car- a silver Mustang. I was embarrassed to drive it, and considered driving around the block and returning it minutes later. Something inside kept me from enjoying little luxuries such as this, limo rides included. (I would soon get over that guilt.) I decided to keep the car and drove down the east coast to reconnect with the band. It was on that coastal highway that I heard Photograph for the first time. Every cliche in the book came true. The song was being played on a station miles from my location, and so it was peppered with static throughout. Another cliche: I actually pulled over on the side of the highway to listen to it. As the static kept interrupting its play, I pulled forward a few feet at a time, and stopped suddenly when the song was clean. Then more static, and I would jerk the car forward a bit. I must have looked ridiculous to passers-by who pitied that poor young man with yellow bleached hair, crying over his bad transmission problem in the car that he certainly did not deserve to be driving (They were tears of joy).

I felt like I had arrived. After the song was finished, I pulled back onto the highway, and oddly, I didn’t feel guilty about that car - in fact, I was quite proud to be driving it. I felt like a real rockstar for the first time ever. I was far away from Michigan, from the hometown fans, and I had just heard my song on the radio.

Photograph did pretty well at first, but really took off when K-ROCK in Los Angeles picked it up. I had no idea how significant it was to have them play it. We got the word when we were visiting the RCA offices in New York City. People were dancing around, high-fiving each other. It seemed to be an overreaction to one radio station adding a song, but I went along with the celebration. Little did I know that K-ROCK adding your record was imperative to the single’s success on a national level. If K-ROCK added your record, then you could count on 50 more stations adding it across the country. Programmers around the country were lazy, and did as the trends told them, and K-ROCK knew the trends, and set a few.

Over the next 4 years, I would chase that drug of a K-ROCK add, but for now, I would shrug it off, ignorant of its importance.

We made the video for Photograph with Lawrence Carroll, Samuel Bayer’s art director for such videos as Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and The Cranberries Zombie. Lawrence’s set designs were brilliant, and when I first arrived at the warehouse in Los Angeles where it was to be filmed, I was completely blown away at the magnitude of it all. It was surreal- This silly little song that I wrote at my kitchen table a year earlier was now being interpreted by a major artist at a major cost.

I found my way up to the dressing room, and there on the table with assorted snacks was the beverage of choice for the band- Jack Daniels. The day was a long one, and I would pull from the bottle many times, to the point of being buzzed enough to fear for my life a bit, standing on the edge of a diving board that was positioned 15 feet in the air, above a few mattresses below. I made it through that, reveling in the attention.

The woman who had done my hair the day before, Anne Morgan, showed up with none other than Cameron Diaz. I chatted with them both, trying to act as casual as I could. Cameron was a sweetheart. She was very funny, silly, and really good taste in bad metal rock from the 80’s. She would break into Round And Round by Ratt, singing at the top of her lungs, to no one, really. Just enjoying herself. I found it very endearing.

Once the video was complete, the next step was to get it added to MTV. It was featured on 120 Minutes, MTV’s alternative video show. Once it was played, sales of the album doubled, then tripled. Pretty soon, we had sold 200,000 albums. But it stalled there. We were in a battle with each other over which song would be the next single. The choice ended up being Cup Of Tea. The experience soon proved to be quite different for that single. Reluctant adds to radio, a lame video, and stalled record sales took its toll on the band. RCA were going back on their promise to release 5 singles. In fact, they threatened that if the next single, Revered Girl, did not do well, that the album would be over.

Sleeping in Sausalito

We first met Jerry Harrison at a club on the lower east side of Manhattan. He showed up at one of our gigs with his wife Carol in tow. Jerry wore a top hat that was far too small for him, while Carol wore a baby doll shirt; again, too small for her. They looked a bit ridiculous, as I reflect on it now. However at the time, I’m sure I thought that they fit in perfectly with the hip crowd. Hell, I was still wearing stone washed jeans and a baseball cap (backwards) at that point.

Steven Van Zandt was at the show as well - I remember being more impressed with that fact. I watched him as he watched us on the stage. He stood alone, hunched over his drink in the middle of the dance floor, bandana and all. I was a huge Springsteen fan, and found it very difficult to approach him. It was intimidating to me to have him watch us. He was clearly a fan; this was the third time I had spotted him at a show.

Meanwhile, Jerry was to produce the first major release by The Verve Pipe. I remember having a conversation with him after that first show in NYC, and feeling confident that he was the right man for the job. He had produced two very successful records with the band Live and one by Crash Test Dummies. We fit in the same mold as them.

A few more conversations, and we were set to record in San Francisco. I was excited with the opportunity, and decided to re-record all of my demos in a fashion that would be very simple for Jerry to understand. I wanted the band to sound like we did live. 2 guitars, bass, drums, keys and vocals. A few harmonies here and there as well. Not too much ear candy. Not a lot of reverb or effects on the guitars. Raw, muscular pop music.

Once we made it out to Sausalito, we were split up into two groups. Brad and I were in one group, and shared a houseboat, docked in the San Francisco bay. Donny, A.J. and Dougie shared the other. This configuration set the tone for the future of The Verve Pipe. Brad and I sided with each other on most days, while the three of them stood firm on their end. The problem was, and would always be: 3 vs. 2. “Democracy” would send me off into my living quarters for hours, stewing about how the vote always seemed to go.

Over the course of the next three months, we recorded Villains. Our midwestern work ethic was not welcomed by Jerry Harrison, it was soon apparent. He believed in recording at a slow pace. Let the album feel its way, and become what the universe intended. It was frustrating for all of us. We didn’t want to take the day off to go sailing in the bay, and yet, we had to. Many days, Jerry took long naps on the couch in the studio, or spent a few hours at his kid’s soccer games. It was infuriating. I remember the first time we played him “The Freshmen” in pre-production, he actually fell asleep. We all politely walked out of the rehearsal studio and played a game of hacky sack.

Having the opportunity to work with an icon was worth the inconvenience of forking over petty cash for him to get across the bridge (he never carried any), and occasionally watching his kids for him. I felt like a child, myself, in his presence. Like he was the father that I needed to please. I sacrificed much of the relationship with my band mates in an effort to keep Jerry happy.

There were moments where he was great, mostly with arrangement suggestions, but those moments were offset with negative experiences, like profanity-laced rants at family restaurants, with toddlers within earshot.

RCA had asked the band to make a promo video, introducing ourselves to the label. It was supposed to be standard stuff: “Hi, we’re The Verve Pipe. We’re grateful that you have signed us, and we can’t wait to get out there and work our butts off for you.” But we NEVER did anything the easy way. We made the video our way. Each band member was given about 10 seconds of screen time. Donny was shown missing a drum fill in the studio and going on a profanity-laced rant of his own. Brad was shown saying that I had a pussy. A.J. Was shown playing guitar and smoking at the same time, with edits from various films- Woody Allen trying to inhale smoke, etc. Gerry was given 10 seconds of his own and of course, the 10 seconds that Jerry had were of him sleeping on the couch in the studio, as we were listening to a mix of “Photograph.” It was intended to be funny, and it was to us. But when RCA got the video, and also heard of some problems in the studio (unrelated to Jerry), they flipped out and nearly fired him for sleeping while we were working.

I was invited to Jerry’s beautiful home in the hills, overlooking the ocean. We were going to have a Sunday brunch. I arrived with a friend at 11 a.m. as instructed, and I saw him in the house reading a book. He was a bit disheveled, and for a moment I thought that I may have had the date wrong. He answered the door and immediately lit into me.

“What the hell are you thinking sending a tape of me sleeping in the studio? ” This was the first time I had heard that RCA had seen it, and that they were upset.

“I…ah…it was a joke…” I replied, sheepishly.
“Really funny. They are talking about firing my ass.” He walked away, and left my date and standing in the doorway. “Do we go in? Do we just leave?”

I decided to stay, and try to make things right. I apologized. He dismissed it, and we ate an uncomfortable brunch.

To this day, I regret not calling him out. It was clear that he wanted to record the album close to his home to spend more time with his family. Admirable, yes. But the lack of sleep he was getting at home kept him napping in the studio. Thank god for Karl Derfler, the engineer on the project, who, in my opinion, did the real producing of the record. He and the mixer, Tom Lord-Alge, made that record happen.

A few years later, and I was sitting at the Whiskey Bar in New York with a group of friends. Someone came up and said that Jerry was there, and asked me to come over. I ignored the invitation. That was my lame attempt to make a statement.

As much as I wanted to tell him off all of those times, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It would be the beginning of a long line of working with producers that would be distracted from our project, and me gutless to speak in defense of the band. I was enamored with the “genius” of these big time record producers.

Turns out, the Jerry Harrison experience was a finger prick compared to the hemorrhage of an experience that we had with the producer of our follow-up album. Michael Beinhorn would soon bring us all to our knees, begging him to stop the bleeding.

The U.S. on $10 a Day

It was an entirely different world now that The Verve Pipe was signed to RCA. We went from the top of the local ladder to the bottom rung on the national. Big fish in the little pond to minnows in the ocean.

The first step was to get in the van and start to create a buzz on the national scene. We jammed the 5 band members into a 15 passenger van, along with a tour manager (Bill Theis), an assistant tour manager (Jason Rio) and our sound engineer (Boo).


Bill Theis was a large man at 6 foot 2 inches and a couple hundred pounds. He smoked cigars and name-dropped. His self-importance seemed more important then actually getting the job done. I imagined that he saw himself as Colonel Parker, Elvis’s puppet master, though he lacked business skills and work ethic.

Jason Rio was fresh out of college, aggressive, had a dark sense of humor, and good taste in music. We took an instant liking to him, mostly because he got the job done, and remained the voice of reason on the tour.

Boo had been our sound man for a few years. He was a teddy bear of a man. When you see the cliche-ridden rock and roll movies where there was one person that knew everything, from how to fix your headphones to how to re-wire the club’s sound system, he was the guy. He lacked coolness, was not particularly popular with the ladies, and had a simple vocabulary outside of tech-speak. He was the best sound man, truck driver, band supporter and promoter that the band could have had. After a long drive on the way to California and a hook up with another touring band called The Imposters, Boo had unloaded the bags, parked the trailer on a slight hill near the hotel and unhitched the van from it, so that we could tool around town, unencumbered. For some reason, the brake on the trailer failed, and it started rolling down that slight hill, straight toward the traffic of the busy street. As it gained speed, full of our guitars, amps and drums, he jumped on to the front of the trailer hitch, riding it like Slim Pickens rode that atom bomb to the ground in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. With all of his might and weight, he steered hitch wheel of that trailer just enough to send it up onto the curb, safe from the busy street. It threw him off. He got up, smiled a bit and said “That was a close one.” We cheered him, and he acted like it was just part of his job. (Years later, after Boo had left the band to do sound for bigger acts, he had another heroic moment. He was 40 feet up in the catwalk of a theater when a 500 lb. cable broke loose, and was going to crash onto the stage. Boo tried to stop it, grabbing on. It pulled him off the catwalk and sent him down with it. Fortunately, a stagehand was below to help break his fall. He was sent to the hospital for a few weeks with a major break to his pelvic bone. After months and months of rehabilitation, he’s back doing sound. Last I heard, he was out with none other than Bruce Springsteen.)

The Imposters were an L.A. based act. They were to join us for a tour of the U.S., sponsored by Insider Magazine. I remember that they had decent enough songs, but the guys were whiners. They complained constantly, it seemed. Or they were sick, or just tired. I’m not sure what they expected from this tour. We crossed the country with them, playing shows, trying to steal each other’s spotlight. I was confident that most people walked away from the night remembering our show instead of theirs.

Not many people showed up for these shows, outside of the midwest. One promoter refused to put the name of the bands on the marquee. he insisted that there was no point. It would be better to just put up “Tonight: National Act” because no one would recognize our name anyway, he thought. “I should punch this guy in the face” was mine.

By the time we played in Michigan with The Imposters at the end of the tour, we were at our best as performers. We ended the tour on a high note- a show at the State Theater in Kalamazoo. The Imposters got a lukewarm response. Morty, their lead singer, insulted our crowd by telling them that after the show, they (the Imposters) got to leave Kalamazoo, but the crowd was stuck here. We heard the boos all the way in the basement.

We rocked them that night. We played new songs, most of which we would record in San Francisco in the next few months. The crowd ate up “Penny Is Poison”, “Ominous Man” and “Veneer”. We were at our best as performers and songwriters. The question was, would any of this translate onto a recording for a major record label? The answer would be known soon enough.

Becoming a Priority

The Rise and Fall of The Verve Pipe Part Four

The first A&R men to visit the band were less than enthusiastic. In fact, they seemed more intent on name dropping to impress the midwestern boys who had never seen NYC south of 42nd street. Capital Records, RCA Records, and Atlantic Records all sent reps to Michigan to see a show. I don’t remember one bad show in the bunch, and still, each of them passed. As the buzz about the band grew a little louder in 1993 and 1994, a few of them returned, this time with different reps.


Brian Malouf from RCA showed up at Club Soda, in Kalamazoo, MI. He was the second rep from RCA that came to see us. Club Soda was a dive bar, great for cheap drinks and a variety of music every night. We had established one hell of a following in Kalamazoo, having already played the State Theater a few times. We booked this night in a addition to a sold out night at the theater.

I could have cared less about Brian Malouf. He was just another rep that was coming out to name drop, then pass on us. I was more determined to continue selling albums on our own. We were running a very successful business, and I didn’t feel like we needed a record label to tell us what to record, and how to record it.

So Brian came out and introduced himself before the show. He was dressed immaculately, casual and cool. He held his cards close to his chest, I thought. He wasn’t dropping names. He just wanted to say hello, and we figured that he would slip out after the show (or during), and we would never see him again.

After a rollicking set, we went backstage to find him there, waiting. He immediately went over the “setlist” he had made. Not knowing the names of the songs, he guessed the correct titles, and scratched them onto a napkin.

“Penny Is Poison is a great song, but I think you need a bridge for that. I didn’t care for the middle section of Drive You Wild (Mild), but I thought that it was hooky none-the-less.” He continued with his notes. I was more interested in meeting some girls before they were all kicked out of the club. I left Brian with Donny and the rest of the boys, got a drink and mingled.

Donny gave Brian our latest cassette, a demo of 4 songs that we had recorded up in Milwaukee.

Three days later, Brian Malouf called me, and said that there was something magic in the song Photograph. “There’s something there. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s worth looking into.” And that was about it. That would turn out to be the beginning of a relationship with RCA. Brian came out to see the band one more time with his boss, and the deal seemed done.

Once Atlantic Records got wind that Brian was interested, they became interested. Atlantic had just started up an alternative label called Lava Records, and were interested in having us joining the ranks of numerous unknown bands, including Matchbox Twenty. The president himself got my home number and called to warn me not to sign with RCA. “They don’t have any acts to speak of. ZZ Top. That’s it. You’ll be making a mistake. We’ll make you a priority.” I wasn’t that interested on Atlantic. They had come to see us twice and passed both times. However, Atlantic getting involved now was the best thing that could happen. There is fierce competition in the record business, and once Brian Malouf caught wind of Atlantic sniffing around, there was an urgency to get us signed. Knowing this, our price went up. We were now involved in a bidding war. It was a win-win situation for our band.

We signed the deal in early 1995. It was very lucrative. We all quit our day jobs. We had no idea what to expect. We had no idea what it meant to be a priority. We feared that RCA had no one else on their label, other than a no-named act called Dave Matthews, popular with the jam band crowd. Those people weren’t our people. We were a rock band. How could we succeed on a label who’s only other rock act was ZZ Top? As it turned out, being one of the first alternative bands to sign with RCA was the best thing that could ever happen to us. We were it. The one and only. We were going to be given top priority. We were going to record with the “great” Jerry Harrison, of The Talking Heads. We were going to record the album in San Francisco. The album would have 5 singles on it. All I had to do was relax, and let things happen. The machine was in place.

Skylarking

The Rise and Fall of The Verve Pipe Part Three

The success of the follow-up to The Verve Pipe’s I’ve Suffered A head Injury depended upon the music, as it should. “The Freshmen” (acoustic version) was a cult fan favorite, and something on the new album would have to touch people in a similar way.

I was listening to a lot of XTC back then. I was playing catch up to the rest of the band, who were absolute freaks about them. Everyone felt like XTC was the Beatles, if they had stayed together. “Dear God” was the first song that I had heard by them:

Dear God, Hope you got the letter, and I pray you can make it better down here.
I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer, but all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet, ’cause they don’t get enough to eat
From God

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears, And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street, ’cause they can’t make opinions meet,
About God,
I can’t believe in you

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear God, don’t know if you noticed, but your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look, and all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain’t and so do you,
Dear God

I won’t believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners,
No Devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You’re always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown. Those lost at sea and never found,
And it’s the same the whole world ’round. The hurt I see helps to compound,
that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
And if you’re up there you’ll perceive, That my heart’s here upon my sleeve.
If there’s one thing I don’t believe in…It’s you,
Dear God.

- By Andy Partridge, From the XTC album Skylarking

That was it for me - I was hooked. I was thrilled to know that there was an entire back catalog of XTC songs to discover. I spent 1992 and 1993 listening to these albums obsessively. Skylarking was the album that had the most impact, I think. the segues from song to song, biting lyrics and harmonies had the most influence on what would be The Verve Pipe’s follow-up album, Pop Smear.

Brian Stout had to be let go, mostly for lack of work ethic. We had to work hard to get to the next level, and we needed all hands on deck to do so. Brian was a great guitarist, a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants soloist, but not very productive on the business side. He would say things like, “Me listening to CDs to learn more about music is just as important as you guys hanging up fliers for the shows.”

Enter A.J. Dunning, who’s work ethic may not have been that much stronger than Brian’s. His playing, however, was far superior. We felt it the first time that we rehearsed with him. He contributed great moments on Pop Smear, and live, people were amazed at his soloing ability, and the fact that he would smoke cigarettes on stage while playing, taking a drag between beats. It was all coming together. Great harmonies, great musicianship and top-notch writing.

At the album release party for Pop Smear, we made an ambitious move, and booked the State Theater in Kalamazoo, MI. 1500 seats would prove to be too many to fill, but even at 600 or 700 people, it looked full, and we sold an unbelievable 500 CDs. It was a terrific show, one of our best. We had a small string section and horns. We played for 2 hours, and gave everyone something to remember that night. We closed it with a crowd sing along to “The Freshmen.” This was our moment, I felt. The moment where we left the local scene behind, and were about to do great things. Finding a record label to take us to the next level was the next step. Frustratingly, It proved to be much harder than any of us had anticipated.

To Check out XTC: Dear God Video