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.