Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [200]
ELIZABETH DAVIS-SIMPSON I told my dad about playing music, but I didn’t really want to tell him the name of the band. He would just say, “It’s a dead end. Being in a band is a dead end.” And then when 7 Year Bitch got signed to Atlantic, I thought, Here’s something I can tell my dad that’s going to mean something to him. Because my dad was born in 1912; he’s not going to find it significant that we are on tour or we have a show at a club. I was really excited. Finally I can talk to my dad. And I said, “We’re signed to Atlantic Records,” and my dad said—I’ll never forget this—he just said, “You’ll find nothing but Jews in the music industry.”
I’m not proud of that—my dad was super-racist and sexist and anti-Semitic—but I told that to Danny Goldberg, the president who signed us to Atlantic Records, and he thought that was the funniest fuckin’ thing.
VALERIE AGNEW We chose who we wanted for a producer and all that kind of stuff, whereas the label was trying to steer us toward something that would be more commercial. We didn’t realize at the time you basically have to get some kind of radio play or else you’re not gonna be able to go very far in their system. It means they don’t spend a lot of time working on your record, because there’s not much they can do with it.
SELENE VIGIL-WILK Tim Sommer was our A&R guy. He was nice, but he was doing Hootie & the Blowfish, too, which kind of threw us for a loop. We just didn’t know how to deal with the label because we were still trying to be really DIY, which was sometimes a mistake on our part, because at times we really didn’t know what the hell we were doing.
VALERIE AGNEW We got really good advice from Buzz from the Melvins, because they were on Atlantic at the same time as us. He warned us not to expect that all the things they were saying were gonna happen—the whole “yes-man” type of deal—and that we have to really pay attention to the amount of money that was being spent. Don’t go accepting a bunch of crazy tour support or big-budget stuff because that’s often taken out of your back end, and just don’t have any illusions about this.
I can remember seeing the Melvins later when they were playing Lollapalooza and they were touring in a van and the other bands were on a tour bus. We were like, “Why are you guys in a van?” And they were like, “ ’cause we’re not gonna spend the money that way. Hell, no. We don’t wanna be indebted to the label.”
BUZZ OSBORNE It was going really good for us recording for Boner Records. We were doing fine, we were making more money than we ever had. We certainly didn’t have anybody knocking on our doors to do records. When we did get interest from a major was when I was recording my solo album—we did these Kiss [themed] solo records. I was actually with Dave Grohl in Seattle, recording with him in this basement that one of his friends had, and Crover called me and said all these majors were interested in signing us. We didn’t have a manager, nothing.
DALE CROVER I was out eating breakfast with Kurt—Nirvana might have been in town or something—and he was like, “Do you guys want to be on a major label?”
And I’m like, “Sure, yeah. Why not?” And somehow from that conversation I got hooked up with these lawyer guys who were working for Mudhoney. They pretty much said, “Because of Nirvana and all these other bands, there’s definitely interest in other bands from Seattle.” Grunge bands, whatever. We were a little leery about it, but these guys were actually pretty straight up.
DANNY GOLDBERG I asked Kurt, “Is there anybody you want me to sign to Atlantic?” He says, “Oh man, sign the Melvins. They’re the best band in the world. They changed my life.” I would never say no to him about something like that. First of all, I figured his taste was a lot better than mine, but secondly, he had done so much for me just by letting me be his manager.
DALE CROVER Danny Goldberg was at Atlantic, but he still owned Nirvana’s management company. He pretty much talked us into signing with his label. He’s like, “You guys are already an established band,