My life as a drummer really started my Junior(?) year of high school when I joined a band called Saint Huck. We were a four piece heaviliy inspired by R.E.M. (it was 1985, what do you want from me?) and mostly played in and around Eugene, Oregon. Once that band ended I hooked up with the accordion player from Saint Huck, Chris, in his new guitar-led outfit The Flatlanders. If you search for that on the internet you’ll find a very different Flatlanders comprised of actually known musicians, but we used the name first! After the Flatlanders ended I played in a punk rock band called Rawhead Rex (again, google will take you down a very different path) and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies with Dan and Steve who were also in St. Huck. Eric and Matt in Rawhead Rex decided to move to Portland but I opted to stay behind in the Daddies until I didn’t.
I moved to Seattle in 1990 more to get out of Eugene than with any grand visions of making it as a drummer. Besides, in 1990 Seattle was NOT the place you’d choose to move if you wanted to make it big. I mostly played with friends (R.I.P. Andy and Phil) in a band called Big Fat for the better part of a year but mainly focused on my life-long dream of being the best damn barista I could be. And not starving. Or running out of beer. I was not particularly successful at any of those goals.
Some time in that first year I got a phone call from Mark Lanegan while Screaming Trees were on tour in Europe. Their drummer had decided to leave and Mark wanted to talk to me when they got back about auditioning. I’d played a bit with him and Mike Johnson (a friend who had also relocated from Eugene to Seattle) so it wasn’t totally out of the blue. I was excited for the opportunity but nervous because they had a bit of a reputation for fistfights on stage and were bigger than me. I still have the copy of Uncle Anesthesia they sent for me to learn some songs but never heard from them again. They hired Barrett Martin instead which was a very good choice on their part.
As we all know, Nirvana changed everything it the Seattle music scene. I’d played in bands that had opened for Nirvana once or twice before that, but back then nobody would have predicted what ended up happening for (to?) them. I only recall seeing them live twice after moving to Seattle. The last time was the infamous April 17, 1991 “OK Hotel” show where they first played “Smells Like Teen Spriit.” I don’t remember having heard it then and am not even sure I was in the room when they did. Honestly, it was the chorus of the last song from that set, “Sliver,” (“Grandma take me home, grandma take me home, grandma take me home…“) that stayed with me for days after. Bleach is still my favorite record of theirs (and yes, I know that song is not on that record). Look at me talking like anyone will ever read this!
Only a month after seeing that Nirvana show, I left the country for Kenya where I was planning on visiting my parents for a month or two. I ended up staying nearly a year. Only four months after leaving, Nirvana released Nevermind and, within a seconds, most of my friends in bands back in Seattle had been snatched up by record labels. My timing could not have been worse and, for some reason, I stayed another 9 months before returning in May of 1992.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) the labels were still hungry after I got back and I joined Best Kissers in the World in July of 1992 just days before they signed a contract with MCA records. We played a few shows, rehearsed a LOT, and recorded an e.p. that came out in February of 1993. Chris Shaw produced it after having just finished working on the first Weezer album which he played us a rough mix of on cassette one night out.
In October of 1992, just before the release of our e.p. Puddin, an unknown band from Rodeo, CA opened for us. It was the day after all their gear had been stolen out of their van in Canada so we donated all proceeds of the Crocodile cafe show (along with Alcohol Funny Car) so the poor kids could try and scrape together enough to make it down the coast toward home. It felt good to help out some truly deserving youngsters who we’d probably never about again. Wonder what ever became of them****, they were very nice.
Aaaaaaanyway…the e.p. did pretty well. Better than the lable had expected, anyway (which should have told us something). We recorded another album for MCA that came out in September of 1993 and spent the rest of that year and pretty much all of 1994 touring around the country. I think Hawaii and Alaska are the only two states we didn’t stop in. The big highlight for me was being invited to open for X on the western half of their 1993 US tour and then again for an “Area Code Tour” where we opened for them at a club in each of Los Angeles’ area codes. The big event on that area code tour was the Whiskey A-Go-Go. We’d played there once before but opening for X there was really something special.
There were some member changes in the band over the years and it remained a fun time until the bitter end. We recorded one more album for MCA, got all ready to tour behind it, and some suit from Seagrams (who had just bought MCA/Universal) listened to the CD, shrugged and said “I don’t get it***,” and that was then end of us. We broke up in the fall of 1995 and that was the end of my trying to make music a career.
A very nice fellow ended up releasing our final album (called Yellow Brock Roadkill) in 2015. It’s nice to have it such that I can hold it in my hands.
I’m not sure what posessed me to write this, or to write it now. I think it may have been Josh Freese being fired from Foo Fighters a few days ago. I met Josh when we were touring with a band called School of Fish in that very busy year of 1993. He’d played on their most recent record and was a very nice fellow. And that made me think of Foo Fighters which obviously made me think of Dave Grohl.
So, one last story.
Back in the olden days when Dave Grohl was looking for a touring band after having recorded the first Foo Fighters record all by himself, I remember he came to a show of ours at (I believe) Sit ‘n Spin in downtown Seattle. I saw him come in part way into our set, knew he was looking at drummers, played my little heart out, and saw him walk out about not ten minutes later. Oh well. It was a few weeks later that he hired the rhythm section from Sunny Day Real Estate.
* That nobody asked about
** Truly not a rock star
*** Allegedly
**** The went by the name of Green Day. I hear they’re still around somewhere. Don’t give up your dreams kids, hope you managed to replace that stolen gear!