Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Hollywood Geek Rock Scene Of The 90s & 2000s [Episode 193]

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The Hollywood Geek Rock Scene Of The 90s & 2000s [Episode 193] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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We're totally booked rock and roll. I mean gott to leave you to you're
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reading, Little Hans says, it's time to rock and roll. Roll up,
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I totally booked. Welcome back to book don Rock, the podcast for
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those about to read and rock. Find the podcast at bookdon rock dot com.
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You can find every episode of Booked on Rock there, along with links
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Booked on Rock YouTube channel at booked on Rock, and if you like what
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you see there, be sure to click the like and subscribe buttons. That
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goes a long way to support the podcast. I'm really excited to talk with
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this episode's guest, sw Louden. He's here to talk about a limited edition
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vinyl LP compilation and oral history book called Generation Blue. It was curated and
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edited by aloud The album and book to together explore the Hollywood geek rock scene
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of the nineties and early two thousands, featuring key bands nerf Herder, Ozma,
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Baby, Lemonade, Soma, and many others, including Weezer, previewed
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by the hit indie single where the Hell Is She? A lost geek rock
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nugget by the band shuffle Puck. The album features eleven rare or exclusive vintage
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tracks, while the book tells the story of the scene and the words of
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those who were there, including Louden, who played drums for the band Ride
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el High. Sw Louden, Welcome to the podcast. I can call you
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Steve right yeah. Please, all my friends call me Steve and we are
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friends now, cool man, this is quite a project. And before I
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ask you about this book and the LP, tell us about yourself, your
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background, your band ridle High, and how all that ties in with this
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book in LP. Well, yeah, I mean I grew up in southern
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California and had a couple older brothers who were older than me by eight or
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nine years. So they were kind of like pool uncles sorta, and so
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at a really young age they were taking me to see def Leppard and Aerosmith
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and do like I'm eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, and so I
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got really into classic rock and heavy metal pretty young. But I grew up
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in the South Bay, which is where Hermosa Beaches, sort of the cradle
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of southern California hardcore. So I kind of got into hardcore as I was
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getting into junior high and that got me into punk, and I just became
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a complete music head throughout elementary school, junior high, high school, and
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then you know, once I got into college and beyond college, I kind
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of started turning it into a career. So after college, I ended up
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playing with a band called righte al High that was signed to A and M
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Records, and that's sort of centered around this project. And then I left
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right Al High at the end of the nineties and played in a band called
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Czar Tsaar that was signed to Hollywood Records, and we did that till about
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two thousand and three, two thousand and four. You're the drummer, I'm
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the drummer, drummer the band YEP. So tell me what is geek rock?
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You know, the way that I'm using it here is very specific to
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nineties geek rock. When I started this project, I thought I was just
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going to write a straight book about geek rock in the nineties, Meeting the
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Weezer, the Rentals, Fountains of Wayne, you know, Nerve Herder,
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bands like that. But as it evolved, I realized what I really wanted
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to do was write about the specific LA scene that I was part of with
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Right L High in the mid nineties, and that scene was started by Weezer,
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kind of brought into even more clear focus by the Rentals, which was
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a spinoff band from Weezer, and then all these bands in LA sprung up
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that were in that mold in one way or another. So for about five
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or ten years there in Hollywood there was a really vibrant scene of bands that
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were taking cues from Weezer's look, their sound, their aesthetic things they were
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singing about, and it was just a really fun time. And it was
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also during this era when it was kind of easy to get our record deal
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in Hollywood. You just kind of had to put in the effort because alternative
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rock was topping the charts and so there was a lot of incentive for bands
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to participate in the scene. And then at the same time, there was
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such a big alternative pop rock scene happening in Hollywood that two annual pop rock
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festivals popped up. The first was called pop Topia, and that really sort
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of fueled this scene that we were a part of. And then there was
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followed by International Pop Overthrow. IPO still exists today and is actually in its
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twenty fifth year. Wow. Talk about the two things that led to the
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concept of this book, and they both have to do with the band Weezer,
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Right, Yeah, my band Ride el High. In ninety six,
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we released a record with the Santa Barbara punk label called My Records, and
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it was the record was produced by Joey Cape from a pretty well known hardcore
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punk band called Lagwagon, and that was his label, and they put it
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out, but it never really It kind of came out and kind of didn't
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come out, and so we got a manager in the meantime, and he
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decided to shop it to A and M Records, and they were interested in
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signing us, like putting the record out again the second time, but they
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were kind of on the fence, and so Weezer took us out on a
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West Coast run of shows, a small handful of shows, and when we
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pulled into Seattle for the first show, I very clearly remember pulling up to
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the venue and seeing just a line of teenage kids sitting out front, like
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eight nine hours before the show, acoustic guitars singing all of Weezer's songs.
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They were all really young, and it really struck me in that moment what
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an impact Weezer was having on up and coming rock fans who were going to
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start their own bands. And then, you know, flash forward. I
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stayed up with Weezer's career, but flash forward a few years ago. I
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think right before the pandemic. I saw Weezer play a big alternative rock festival
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in LA and they came out and I was thinking of Weezer as the band
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that I knew in the nineties, right, Like, in my mind they
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froze as this like the next big thing coming out of LA. But then
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they when I saw them play that night, it was just a front to
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back greatest hit set and the entire venues like twenty thousand people were singing along
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to every song and it was like forty and fifty year old parents with their
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kids. And again I'm seeing this connection to the younger generation that Weezer's appealing
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to. And I was talking to my friends afterwards that night and I was
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like, you know, I don't think Weezer gets the credit that they deserve
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for what an influence an impact they've had on alternative rock and like nobody back
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then, I don't think would have predicted that they'd still be hit makers thirty
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years later, Like of all the bands, is it going to be Weezer?
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I don't think we could have predicted that, But seeing them up there
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and everything they achieved, it just struck me that, like their influence is
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pretty profound, they are probably by now eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall
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of Fame. Right, what's the first album? Is how old just turned
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thirty? Yeah? Blue that the Blue album is thirty, So twenty five
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years is the That's the if you do the math, they've were past that,
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so they really should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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Yeah, I got to imagine that whenever they get around and nominating them,
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I'm guessing it won't be a tough putt to get them in there. Yeah,
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talk about how this book is laid out really interesting. Talk about that
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and also the people that you spoke to to put this together. You know,
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it's funny. I managed to avoid getting COVID for the first time until
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twenty twenty one, and I swear it's relevant to your question. But I
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was laid up and I was stir crazy because my wife had me sequestered in
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her bedroom. Oh yeah, after a while, it's same here where I
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was ordered to stay home from work, and it was like in the beginning
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it was cool, but then after a while you're going mad, Like I
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was going days the same Sundays like a Tuesday, Thursdays like a Saturday.
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You wouldn't know the you binge like every show, and then you get bored,
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Yes exactly. You listened to every record you swore you were going to
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revisit and get bored. Yes, well, anyway, so I you know,
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I kind of was toying with this idea of this geek rock book,
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and I'm laid up in bed and I just started reaching out to people that
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I thought would be interesting interviews. And so while I had COVID, I
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think I did the first ten interviews, and I at the time, I
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was casting a wider net, so it wasn't just LA because I wasn't sure
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what the project was going to turn into. But as I started thinking about
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it and talking to people more, it started narrowing my focus to specifically again
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that nineties Hollywood scene that I was part of, and so I started focusing
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more on those people who were part of that scene. Once I had about
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twenty five thirty interviews, probably about twenty to twenty two of them relevant to
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what the book ended up being. I was kind of reading through it and
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realizing that I needed everybody to be able to tell the story, their own
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version of the story, their own version of events, in their own voice.
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And I had done one oral history book previous to this about my best
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friend's band in Santa Barbara called Popsico that was sort of the same era,
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and so I really liked the oral history format, so that's what I ended
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up doing. I wrote an introduction. I had Carl Kock, who is
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Cotch, who is the He's considered the fifth member of Weezer. He runs
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the Weezer fan club. He's always out on the road with them, like
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there is. It's hard to imagine Weezer not having Carl involved. He's been
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there since the very very beginning, and so he was sort of my sounding
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board for what was true and what sounded right, and then he wrote the
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forward. I wrote the introduction, and then I did the oral history that
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encompassed sort of geek rock's origins, dating back to the heavy metal band that
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some of these guys were in with Rivers in Connecticut in the eighties there moved
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out to Hollywood, and how they kind of caught the end of the hair
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metal sunset strip scene, like the bitter end, the like not fun end
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of it as it was imploding. And then what happens in those two or
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three years that they transformed from these shredding metal guys into what becomes geek rock
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from there, once we have Weezer established. I talked to Matt Sharp from
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the Rentals, also Weezer's original bass player, and then the most of it
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is an oral history of all the bands that then took cues from Weezer and
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the Rentals and released records and played a bunch of shows and toured and it
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went on for that part of a decade. Then you mentioned Rivers. That's
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Rivers Cuomo, Yes, okay, of Weezer. Now for this episode,
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I wore a Sunset sound hat given to me by the folks there so in
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honor of the Sunset strip. But that's interesting that I didn't know that there
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was that transition from the hair metal bands to the quote unquote geek rock bands.
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I had no idea that that's where they originated from I know this story
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really starts in Connecticut, but that scene was mid nineties Sunset strip. Yeah,
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well, I mean, I'm again, I'm kind of specificous. I'm
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looking through a very narrow focus for this project because it's about this specific scene
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that was happening. But Rivers, Cuomo, Justin Fisher and Kevin Rydell were
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all in the Connecticut heavy metal band called Avant Garde and they were shredders,
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right, like progressive metal, over the top arrangements, high pitched vocals like
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everything you can imagine. That's the band that move with another guitar player and
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a drummer, that moves out here in like eighty nine to achieve the heavy
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metal dream of playing on the Sunset Strip right where bands like Rat and Motley
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Crue and Pretty Boy Floyd and all these bands are from and getting signed that
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was their goal. But when they get here, that scene is kind of
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petering out right. For the better part of the eighties that dominated Hollywood.
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That was like what everybody was talking about in La was hair metal, hunk
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was still happening. All the new styles of music that came along also happening.
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Because I mean in La is a big place, there's room for all
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kinds of music, but hair metal sort of dominated the image of music in
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LA. So they catch the tail end of that. They changed their name
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to Zoom. At one point they're headlining like the Roxy on a Saturday night.
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Like they're getting momentum going this band, but the scene's just not there
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to support it quite as much anymore, and their drummer and guitar player quit.
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The band starts falling apart, and so that band, Zoom eventually just
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sort of dissolves and Justin Rivers and Kevin all kind of go their separate ways
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in LA. Right, so you have these core metal guys who moved out
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from Connecticut. They become really the foundation for the geek rock scene. Obviously,
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Rivers Cuomo starts Weezer. Eventually he goes through a bunch of other iterations.
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There's a funk metal band, and there's like some damaged art rock band.
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That happens. But he's talked about this a lot in other press.
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But he got a job at Tower Records and started hanging out with guys who
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were turning him onto the Pixies and the Velvet Underground stuff that he hadn't been
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exposed to before. That's kind of happening for all three of these guys in
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different ways. Well, River starts Weezer, Kevin Rdel starts Lunchbox, which
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becomes right al High, which is the band that I joined. Justin Fisher
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starts shuffle Puck, which actually formed in the same house that Weezer lived in
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in West La. Justin also after that on to join NERF Herder as a
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bass player for a couple of records, and he started his own band called
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Soma. So just those three guys from that one heavy metal band ended up
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having this really profound impact on this geek rock scene in La. Talk about
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the LP that comes with this, the vinyl LP that comes with the book.
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This is so cool. Oh thank you. Yeah again. The Popsico
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project that I did before was the same thing. It was. It was
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Popsico's previously self released nineteen ninety five album Off to a bad Start, and
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then I did an oral history of the band, and so I did that
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with Big Stir Records, and then I handle the publishing of the book.
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And so when we did this project again, I got about three quarters of
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the way through putting the book together, and I realized you have to hear
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this music because a lot of it, like you can find it on YouTube,
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you can find some of it on Spotify, but a lot of it's
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kind of lost to time and without the content of the book or a compilation
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to kind of focus you in on what these bands sounded like. I thought
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it was a big miss. So when I went to Big Store, they
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loved the idea and they agreed to do it on vinyl, which was my
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dream. And it's blue vinyl, and it's like really cool looking blue vinyl.
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This is the cover. Beautiful. Yeah, for those listening to this
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episode, check it out on YouTube. But I also put the I'll try
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to put the picture up somewhere. Yeah, it's beautiful. Thank you.
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We're really proud of it. So obviously I already mentioned Shufflepuck that was Justin's
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band with Adam Orth. They lived in the Amhurst House, which is sort
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of the famous house in Weezer lore because that's the house where the garage was
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from the song in the Garage where they rehearsed, and Shufflepuck was living there
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at the same time as Weezer was transitioning out and then it actually became the
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Shufflepuck House. Sadly, that house just got torn down last year. It
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was standing until last year. The second song on the vinyl is a band
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called Baby Lemonade. The lead guitarist for Baby Lemonade is Mike Randall. Mike
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Randall's the guy who first played the Blue Album for me at his record store
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in nineteen ninety four. I had never heard them, and I'd been living
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in Eastern Europe and I returned home and I walked into his record store and
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he's like, You've got to hear this album. It's like the first thing
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he said to me and he played me the Blue Album is Baby Lemonade.
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By the way, is that a connection to Sid Barrett? That's a Sid
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Barrett song. They named themselves after a Sid Barrett song. Okay, In
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like ninety three ninety four, Arthur Lee from the band Love adopted them and
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they became Love for the rest of Arthur Lee's career. Isn't that wild?
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Yeah? Yeah. Supersport two thousand is the third band. They were a
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band called Magpie that came up in the clubs with Weezer. They changed their
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name to Supersport two thousand, and that band actually most of that band became
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The Rentals Right, so Matt Sharp adopted Supersport two thousand and that became The
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Rentals Girls was another band. John Picus, who's the drummer for Campfire Girls,
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recorded the Weezer demo in his garage that helped get them signed to Geffen,
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and he's in this band called Campfire Girls. Prior to that, he
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was in another couple bands in La So he was around at the same time
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as Weezer coming up in the clubs Cock Eyed Ghost. They rehearsed at the
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Amherst House with Weezer in that same garage. Chopper One is the band that
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the original guitar player from Weezer. His name is Jason Cropper. After he
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left Weezer in the middle of the making of the Blue album, he started
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Chopper One and they're the last band on side one. So I'm not gonna
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go song by song on side two, but you can see that, like
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everything connects to the theme, there's a reason these people are on the comp.
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And then everybody on the comp is very prominently featured in the oral history
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book. Is it going to be just vinyl only or eventually in all formats
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it a vinyl only for physical as far as we know, but as of
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April twenty six it'll be up on band camp and Spotify and all the streaming
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platforms. Okay, perfect, Yeah, yeah, And the book and the
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LP come out April twenty sixth. Then it's called Generation Blue. It's up
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for pre sale though right now, right exclusively through Big Star Records. Yeah,
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it's on presale. And actually it's the quickest selling project they've ever done
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in their five year history. How about that. People are like really coming
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for it. So we only have a handful of the books and vinyl left.
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We have a launch party with a bunch of these bands, including my
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own, reuniting for the first time, some of the bands reuniting for the
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first time in like twenty five years. We're all playing the show in la
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on April twenty eighth, and we're suspecting by the time it gets to the
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show, the last handful will be available at the show and that'll be it.
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It'll be completely sold out. Wow, he is. So we're talking
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to the man behind the project, Steve Louden. Chapter four of the book
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gets into Weezer. By the way, I don't know if it's isn't your
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book. How did Weezer come up with their name? You know? It
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was funny And we were rehearsing with right Al High just a couple of nights
19:08
ago, and Kevin was saying that he doesn't remember exactly how they came up
19:14
with their name, and I certainly wasn't there for it, but he said
19:18
that there was a point at which there was a whole list of names that
19:22
all started with W. For some reason, I think that was the story,
19:26
and they chose Weezer. I don't know why. But Kevin was in
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the band very briefly before he started Lunchbox. It was like a funk metal
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band again when they're transitioning out of metal and they're kind of groping their way
19:37
towards alternative rock. He was in a funk metal band and they tore Guatemala
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of all places, which he talks about in the book in like ninety two,
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and Rivers was their roadie. It just before he started really started Weezer.
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But that tour he was talking about how when he got back to America
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he was going to start this band called Weezer, And so when they were
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doing interviews in Guatemala, Kevin was like, whenever they got asked who their
20:03
biggest influence was, they're like, oh, definitely Weezer. We loved this
20:07
called Weezer and they didn't even exist yet. That's great. Yeah, And
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there's some great quotes in the book too that give you a close look at
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the early days. Justin Fisher, who was a member of Nerve Herder and
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Soma Soma Yes, Soma, Yeah, yeah. It was a friend of
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Rivers Cuomo, the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of Weezer. And then
20:27
there's another band that's mentioned in this book, That Dog. How good was
20:33
this band and what became of that Dog? Because it sounds like they were
20:37
really good. They are. They really great indie pop band and they signed
20:44
They also signed to Geffen and they did some touring with Weezer back in the
20:47
early days. I would highly recommend you go out and check out their music.
20:52
It's it's really great nineties indie pop. Anna Warnacker was the singer and
20:59
then two of the Hayden sisters were on bass and violin, I believe,
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and they both ended up after that band working with the Rentals. Both of
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them ended up working with the Rentals and have stayed in the Weezer and Rentals
21:18
universe over the years. Really talented musical family. Yeah. Yeah, the
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news just announced, by the way, that that Weezer tour that is going
21:26
to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Blue album is coming up. And you
21:30
have quotes in the book where people talk about being immediately blown away by that
21:36
album. Mike Randall from the band Baby Lemonade got to hear the promos set
21:40
six months before it was released, and he said he immediately loved it.
21:42
What was your first impression of the album when you heard it? I mean,
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I was floored. And that's sort of the third reason that I wrote
21:52
this book and put this project together was I grew up in La. I
21:56
was very active in the LA music scene. I was going to lots and
22:00
lots of shows as a teenager and in my early twenties, all the way
22:03
through college. Then when I graduated college, I moved to Eastern Europe.
22:07
For about eighteen months, I was living in Prague and time kind of stood
22:11
still there. That was like we weren't getting Western music as quickly as I
22:17
was accustomed to. So when I left La, I had a really good
22:19
handle on what the music scene was like when I got back, and the
22:23
very first thing Mike Randall played for me was the Blue Album. I was
22:27
like, what the hell happened when I was gone, because it didn't it
22:33
sounded enough like everything that had come before it, because it took into account
22:37
grunge and Nirvana and the Pixies and Pavement, and you could hear the Beach
22:41
Boys and you could hear belbout Underground like all these bands I was into,
22:45
but no band when I left was quite putting it together in such a perfect
22:49
way. So when I heard all that, the very first response I had
22:55
was, this is like the Pixies meets the Beach Boys. And I still
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think that that. That's my capsule sort of definition for what the Blue Album
23:03
is. But yeah, I was just leveled by it. I couldn't believe
23:07
how good it was well, and the hits, they speaks for the for
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itself, as far as the album packed with hits, Buddy Holly Undone,
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the sweater song say it Ain't So is in there, and one that I'm
23:18
surprised wasn't a hit, The world has turned and left Me here. I
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don't know if that was released as a single, But that's a great tune.
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That's a really great song. I mean the people in the book who
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say things like, well, actually, I think this is the guy from
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Rooney says that the Blue Album sounded and played like a greatest Hits record from
23:42
the moment you heard it, and it still sounds like that today. It's
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like every song on that record, in my estimation, is amazing. Right.
23:51
I was very lucky. They kicked off the thirtieth anniversary of the Blue
23:56
Album two or three weeks ago by playing a small club and here in La
24:00
they played, so they played the entire Blue Album to five hundred people.
24:06
You know, right now they're selling out twenty thousand seat arenas, right,
24:10
so to be able to see it in their hometown with five hundred people,
24:12
and my buddy got me in. So I was there to see people's response
24:17
to that record thirty years later, shouting back every word at the band the
24:22
whole time. It was like the most joyful night, and it was just
24:26
this really great reminder that this was like a scrappy local band that nobody would
24:30
have bet on, and they ended up just having this incredible career. Yeah.
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Released May tenth, nineteen ninety four. Yep, boy, time flies
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right that OJ Simpson just passed away and they're talking about June of nineteen ninety
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four, thirty years ago. It's like, oh my god, it was
24:48
like felt like thirty days ago. But yeah, in some ways. Yeah,
24:52
And that's the oird thing about the Blue album is like it still sounds
24:56
fresh. Yeah. I was about to say it has stood the test of
24:59
time. Absolutely, It really has, absolutely, because it it sounds well.
25:03
It does have its influences of a Nirvana or some of the grunge bands,
25:07
but also it's it's like a mix of influences that are are from bands
25:12
that are timeless well, and I think too, like especially the Blue record
25:18
is so polished and it is such a perfect document of that songwriting in that
25:23
band and how talented they were. But there is a sort of metal precision
25:29
to it, right, Like they're not sloppy like this, that's a very
25:32
precise run it is. Everything is exactly in its right place, which is
25:36
exactly how I always felt about the Cars. And ric Ocassick produced the album,
25:41
right yeah, yeah, I forget how ric Ocassick got involved with that.
25:45
Didn't he know someone in the band they were signed to him was signed
25:49
to a major label. Carl addresses this very briefly in the book, or
25:53
maybe Todd Sullivan, who was their A and R guy, who I also
25:56
interviewed for the book. You know, when you get signed to a major
26:00
label, the labels involved to some degree in helping, especially if you're a
26:06
new band, to helping, vetting and picking a producer that's going to get
26:11
them the product they want, especially back then, and so I think they
26:14
shopped around for a bunch of producers. But Rivers was a Cars fan from
26:18
what I'm able to understand, and I think once Ric Oksa got into the
26:25
conversation, it seemed pretty obvious that he was the right guy to do the
26:27
record. Sure was DGC was the label same label as Nirvana? Was it?
26:34
YEP? And Sonic cute? Yeah? Yeah, So you're seeing the
26:38
van Halen shirt here, okay, and you see the van Halen memorability behind
26:42
me. So I knew Nerve Herder I knew, and as a huge Star
26:47
Wars fan, I got the name named after a line in the first Star
26:52
Wars film, and they released the song titled van Halen in nineteen ninety seven.
26:56
So they form in Santa Barbara Perry gripped the band's lead vote listen guitarist
27:00
has a quote in the book I want to ask you about. He said
27:02
quote that Weezer show in Santa Barbara was ground zero for nerf Her becoming a
27:07
geek rock band. So of course we idolized Weezer and tried to sound like
27:11
Weezer, and then we toured with Weezer. So what show was he referring
27:15
to sell? So interestingly again, I've brought this Popsico project that I did
27:22
up a few times now. Popsico was a Santa Barbara based alternative rock band
27:27
that was around at the same time as Weezer was coming up at the Club
27:32
ninety three. And the very first show that Weezer played outside of LA in
27:38
support of the Blue album, like four days after the Blue Album was released,
27:44
was in Santa Barbara and it was with Popsico, which was a local
27:48
big band in Santa Barbara, and Green Thumb which had Chris Shifflett from The
27:53
Food Fighters on guitar, and Wax, which was a really prominent alternative LA
28:00
band that Joe Sibb was the singer for. Joe SIB's now like a well
28:04
known comedian, but he ran a punk rock label called Side one Dummy for
28:08
a very long time. And Wax was a huge inspiration for Weezer. That
28:14
was sort of the local band that Weezer was looking up to. When they
28:17
were putting the look and feel and sound of Weezer together, they really looked
28:19
up to Wax. So those four bands with all that star power played this
28:26
show in Santa Barbara. Perry Gripp was in a sort of social distortion wanna
28:33
be band called The Decline of Paisley John Shaver that had been playing around Santa
28:38
Barbara for idolized Mike Ness of all things. Yeah, Mike Ness, And
28:42
if you know Perry, he's not a very like Mike Ness is hard right,
28:45
Like, Perry's not that guy. So it's kind of funny that he
28:48
picked him. But after that band broke up, he wanted to start something
28:52
with Steve Sherlock, and I think they were already called nerf Herder, very
28:59
very new name for them, still putting the idea of the band together,
29:03
and they went to this show and Perry says, there's Rivers up there with
29:07
the bowl cut and thick glasses singing about a twelve sided die and as Dungeon
29:12
Master's guide, and he was like, this is something I can relate to.
29:17
And so that moment, that show in Santa Barbara in ninety four completely
29:22
changed Perry's in Steve's mind about what the possibilities for Nerfrider could be. And
29:27
that's sort of like they became the flag bearers for nerd rock or geek rock.
29:33
You did mention the Rentals, I want to talk a little bit more
29:34
about them. Their first album made quite an impact and one person in the
29:37
book talked about that album being as good as the Blue Album from Weezer.
29:41
Who are the Rentals? How good is that first album? In your opinion,
29:45
I think it's amazing. Matt Sharp was the original bass player and one
29:51
of the founding members of Weezer, and he was only on the first two
29:55
Weezer records, so he was on the Blue Album and Pinkerton, But then
29:59
the Rental get signed and he goes he goes off with that band. They
30:03
signed with Maverick, which was Madonna's label. So between when when the Rentals,
30:10
I'm sorry, when the when Weezer was recording the Blue Album with rick
30:14
O Kasik at Electric Ladyland in New York, Matt was trying to become a
30:21
songwriter. He hadn't previously spent much time as a songwriter. Rik Okaysik's wife
30:26
was Paulina Porskova, who was a supermodel. One night, she kind of
30:32
offhandedly mentioned that she'd never liked any of the songs anybody had written about her.
30:37
So Matt took that as a challenge and he wrote this song called Friends
30:41
with p for Paulina Porskova, and that became their first big hit. But
30:45
when they first started recording, which kind of happened, like so Weezer records
30:51
their record, Matt starts doing being a songwriter. Weezer's a new band,
30:55
so they don't get priority for when their record gets released, so it's you
30:59
know, it's five six months between when they hand the record in and DGC
31:03
releases it. In that time, Matt took Weezer's drummer Pat Wilson and Rod
31:08
Servera who is from Super Sport two thousand, who's in the book and on
31:12
the comp and they go into this sort of like famous super indie studio in
31:18
La called poop Ali, which is where like that Dog recorded. It is
31:23
like the down and dirty, right and there's a lot of bands in LA
31:27
at the time, like there was a poop Ali sound, right, there
31:30
was a specific sound that this guy got, and so Matt worked with him,
31:36
and the first recordings they made are really down and dirty indie rock,
31:41
really stripped down, and they didn't have the moogs on there yet, which
31:45
became the sort of defining instrument uh and the synthesizers for what the rental sound
31:52
became. So then Weezer Blue Album comes out, takes off, Matt puts
32:00
the rentals aside. Once the album cycles over. For the Blue Album,
32:04
Matt comes back to the rentals recordings, but this time he's got a little
32:07
money and a little more experience, so he and the guy a poop Alli
32:12
decide that they're going to try to turn it into an elo record. That's
32:15
what he told me, right, And so that's when they started adding all
32:20
the additional instrumentation and it becomes this record Return of the Rentals, and that
32:25
record is sort of seminal in cementing geek rock because you had Weezer and it
32:31
seems sort of a little bit like an anomaly, like, Okay, they're
32:35
the only band that's going to like go that far with that look in that
32:38
sound. But then you've got this Weezer spinoff called the Rentals that actually took
32:43
it a step further. They all wore thick glasses and gray Soviet era suits
32:49
and were all kind of round shoulders like it was almost like geek rock like
32:54
theater like they went so over the top with the geek rock look. But
32:59
there was another band that proved that this sound and this look and this approach
33:02
to alternative rock could work. And so a band like Ozma, who's also
33:08
on the comp and three of the members are in the oral history and their
33:14
whole history is super entwined with Weezer, and the Rentals took cues from both
33:21
bands, the sort of the sort of super pop alternative grunge influence of Weezer
33:29
with the sort of keys and more adventurous new wave elo approach that the Rentals
33:35
brought to it and turned it into their sound. And there was a whole
33:37
bunch of bands that used both those bands as sort of their polls for developing
33:43
their sound. The book Done Rock Podcasts will be back after this. The
33:49
book does touch on the business side of rock and roll, how it can
33:52
be pretty frustrating, shuffle Puck is a great example. They signed with Interscope
33:57
record a full album, but it never gets really least what happened? Band
34:01
member Adam Orth says in the book there were some songs on there that he
34:05
felt would be great singles. One of them, I believe, is the
34:08
lead single to promote this Generation Blue project, right where the hell is She?
34:13
Yeah? Where the Hell is She? Is the first single, and
34:15
we actually were able to get archival video footage that nobody had seen since they
34:21
recorded it in ninety six, and so we turned it into this archival video
34:23
that's really worth looking at because right away you see that these guys are taking
34:28
cues from Weezer. Adam's another guy from Connecticut who grew up with Justin and
34:34
Rivers but didn't play in that metal band, but came from the same elementary
34:37
school, the same junior high the same high school, was playing in his
34:42
own metal bands in Connecticut, so he seems to be on the same trajectory
34:46
as the other guys. What happened Well, so after Weezer's success, one
34:55
thing that Weezer again doesn't get enough credit for is they a lot of these
35:00
bands, including my band, get a foot in the door and clubs in
35:04
Hollywood, or if you know, helped you with labels or gave you advice
35:07
or put you on bills to get you exposure. Like they were supporting a
35:13
lot of these bands right, paying it forward or paying it back because they
35:15
were taking it off right. But Shufflepuck lived with them, and those guys
35:21
were some of Weezer's oldest friends, specifically River's oldest friends growing up in Connecticut,
35:27
and so Matt Sharp would would take Justin and Adam around and introduce them
35:32
to all the bookers in town and immediately got them on bills. Before they
35:37
were really even that successful in the clubs, Weezer started adding them to bills.
35:40
There was a point at which shuffle Puck I believe was an unsigned band
35:45
was opening for Weezer Teenage Fan Club and shuffle Puck played the Universal Amphitheater and
35:52
Shufflebuck was an unsigned band. Like that's the kind of like support that Weezer
35:55
was giving to their friends and bands on this scene. Shuffle Puck tremendously talented,
36:02
great band, right out of the gate, great live, amazing songs,
36:07
all super talented players. They get heat on them right away, but
36:10
they really want to sign to Interscope, and they just have their sites laser
36:15
set on Interscope because Interscope was like the hottest alternative label at the time for
36:21
everybody but in Hollywood that to get signed to Interscope was a big deal.
36:24
So they got signed to Interscope and they made this really tremendous record. But
36:30
in the middle of recording the record, their A and R guy disappeared.
36:34
Your A and R guy is your lifeline to the label, and so he's
36:37
your go between, the person who's advocating for you in these meetings, making
36:45
sure you're getting on the roster to get released, and all the things that
36:47
need to line up internally just to get you to the starting blocks. Without
36:53
that, they turned in what is a really tremendous record. And because Interscope
37:00
was so big at the time, they had Bush and they had no doubt,
37:06
like they were just having hit after hit after hit. Shuffle pup was
37:12
no priority. They didn't have the representation internally is there, ain't. Our
37:15
guy was gone. So at a certain point they negotiated a deal to get
37:19
dropped with the record, meaning you're no longer obligated to this contract and we're
37:23
going to give you the master tapes back, which means you can sell it
37:27
to another label. But by the time that all happened a year down the
37:30
line, there wasn't as much demand for that kind of music because there were
37:36
so many bands playing it. They weren't quite as novel man and so the
37:42
sort of most rock and roll story and the geek rock canon is they were
37:46
playing a show at the annual pop Toopia festival in Hollywood. My band right
37:52
All High was on the bill that night. They were like eight bands.
37:54
We each got to play twenty minutes with the back line. It was just
37:57
like really fast and broke the band up on stage in the middle of their
38:02
set without telling anybody in advance. So his band found out on stage that
38:07
they broke up that night. Wow, so uh, they had this like
38:12
crazy trajectory. So to have where the hell is She? Which was always
38:16
one of my favorite songs from that era and that scene kick off this compilation
38:22
is a real honor. Yeah, just talent and opportunity have to come together
38:28
at the right time. Yeah, at the right time. That's such a
38:32
bomber to hear this ain and R guy. He disappeared, like what was
38:37
that all about. I don't know what the hut with it got fired,
38:39
quit whatever. Yeah, but you're so right there. You got to have
38:42
somebody that's going to get behind it. That that's the whole reason to get
38:45
with a big label, so they can get a push behind it, put
38:49
the money into it, promote it, and have that guy go out there
38:52
and hustle and call all the radio stations. At that time, that was
38:54
a big thing. Yeah. Oh man, that's there. There's the there's
39:00
the business side of rock and roll that can be a real bomber. So
39:04
if you could sum up that period of from the nineties to early two thousands,
39:08
what would it be in your mind? A sentence or two that sums
39:12
that whole period up when you look back on it. I mean, there
39:15
were basically two waves. There was that initial wave that had this sort of
39:20
direct connection to Weezer and the rentals, so that spands like Shuffle Puck,
39:24
bands like Ride All High, Supersport two Thousand, Campfire Girls, and almost
39:29
all of us got record deals. Many of us got major label record deals,
39:34
but they all fell through in one way or another. To your earlier
39:37
point, Then there was a second wave that was younger bands that weren't directly
39:42
connected with Weezer and the rentals who actually just grew up being fans of those
39:45
bands, So that spands like Ozma and Phantom Planet and Kara's Flowers and Rooney
39:53
and that second generation took the template and tweaked it a little bit. But
39:59
between those two things, it was this really beautiful ten year period where there
40:05
was a bunch of talented, like minded musicians who created this scene that was
40:09
all our own, and people responded to it. We could get people out
40:15
to the clubs, we could get the labels paying attention, we could get
40:17
played on radio, we could go on tours to one degree or another,
40:22
and so it was a really beautiful thing because it just happened naturally, and
40:27
it happened because this band, Weezer, took a chance and created their own
40:32
look in their own sound and ended up being a platform for a bunch of
40:37
us for the next decade or so. And right, alhi, you guys
40:40
are you posted on social media? Were rehearsing getting ready for April twenty eighth.
40:45
Right, yeah, April twenty eighth, We're playing a show in la
40:49
It's the official launch of the comp and the book We've got two of the
40:53
guys from Ozma, Daniel and Jose, playing an acoustic set. Perry Grip
40:59
and Linus from Hollywood from nurf Heerder are playing an acoustic set Soma. Justin
41:06
Fisher's band is playing. Right o' high is playing shuffle Puck is playing their
41:10
first show with the entire original lineup in twenty seven years. They've not played
41:15
against It's that night at Poptopia. Well, then the Campfire Girls, who
41:20
are just tremendous live, very heavy, amazing band, are closing out the
41:24
night. Cool Now is Right o' high an active project. Do you guys
41:29
play regular gigs? No? No, no, no, this is this
41:34
is just to get back for this event, get back together for this.
41:37
Yeah. Kevin, Kevin elite singer, and I have stayed in touch.
41:40
Unfortunately, we were a trio and Kevin was vocals and bass. I was
41:45
the drummer, and our guitar player was Steve Leroy, and unfortunately he passed
41:50
away a couple of years ago. It's very sad to lose Steve. I
41:52
actually dedicated the Oral History book to him, that's in the front of the
41:55
book. Had some amazing times with that guy. Was wildly talented guitar player.
42:04
So these days. You know, over the years, right o'hi has
42:07
maybe played a one off show every four or five years for fun or whatever,
42:10
fundraiser or whatever. So when we play, it'll be Matt Fuller,
42:16
who is a guitar ace most recently was in the band Puddle of Mud.
42:22
He'll be on guitar. Wow, Okay, Jose Galvez who's in Ozma,
42:27
will also be on guitar. Marco de Santez will be on bass. Marco
42:31
was in Sugar Cult and then Kevin and I. So we play as a
42:36
five piece these days. Okay. So April twenty sixth, the album and
42:40
the LP come out, So where should people go to get a copy?
42:45
You could, they could still try pre ordering it, but like you said,
42:47
there's not many left. Yeah, there's only a handful left. But
42:51
the best place to go is big Stur Records dot com. Big Stur Records
42:57
dot com. Yep, Yeah, congratulations see on this book, on this
43:00
project, it's for me. It's an opportunity to learn more about that whole
43:05
scene and a lot of these bands that I didn't know about. So I'm
43:07
looking forward to hearing the album too. So that. I'm glad to hear
43:13
it's going to be available on the streaming streaming platforms. Will it be available
43:15
as soon as the book goes up same time, same day, April twenty
43:19
six, or yeah, April twenty six, everything will go live on all
43:22
the streaming platforms. Great, okay, well probably a few weeks after that.
43:28
I'll probably put an ebook version of the Oral History up on Amazon as
43:31
well. Excellent, Steve, thanks so much. This was great. Glad
43:36
we made this happen. I know we we contacted, We connected a while
43:39
back and been looking forward to this. Oh man, thank you so much
43:43
for having me on and for being interested in this project. It's total labor
43:46
of love. So thank you. That's it. It's in the books.