SMASH MOUTH
A look back at Smash Mouth’s formative years show us a band determined to make an impact from the get-go. Formed in late 1994, the band immediately begins recording demos and showcasing in both San Jose and Hollywood, CA.Smash Mouth’s major-label debut “Fush Yu Mang” goes more than DOUBLE PLATINUM and sets the table for what most consider their masterpiece, 1999’s brilliant follow-up album “Astrolounge”. No sophomore slump for these guys! Boasting three top-ten hits (“All-Star”, “Then The Morning Comes”, and “Can’t Get Enough Of You Baby”), sales for “Astrolounge” are nearly double those for their debut, approaching QUADRUPLE PLATINUM status.Smash Mouth’s third, eponymous Interscope release features the ecstatic first single “Pacific Coast Party” and the smash hit “I’m A Believer”. Around this time, Smash Mouth crosses over into film world by providing the musical heart of the soundtrack for “Shrek”, and even making a cameo appearance in the movie “Rat Race”.
A look back at Smash Mouth’s formative years show us a band determined to make an impact from the get-go. Formed in late 1994, the band immediately begins recording demos and showcasing in both San Jose and Hollywood, CA.Smash Mouth’s major-label debut “Fush Yu Mang” goes more than DOUBLE PLATINUM and sets the table for what most consider their masterpiece, 1999’s brilliant follow-up album “Astrolounge”. No sophomore slump for these guys! Boasting three top-ten hits (“All-Star”, “Then The Morning Comes”, and “Can’t Get Enough Of You Baby”), sales for “Astrolounge” are nearly double those for their debut, approaching QUADRUPLE PLATINUM status.Smash Mouth’s third, eponymous Interscope release features the ecstatic first single “Pacific Coast Party” and the smash hit “I’m A Believer”. Around this time, Smash Mouth crosses over into film world by providing the musical heart of the soundtrack for “Shrek”, and even making a cameo appearance in the movie “Rat Race”.
SPIN DOCTORS
Thirty years. It’s an eternity in rock ‘n’ roll, and a marathon for the bands who fly its tattered flag. Revisit the class of 1988, and the casualties are piled high: a thousand bands that blew up and burnt out. In this chew-and-spit industry, the Spin Doctors are the last men standing, still making music like their lives depend on it, still riding the bus, still shaking the room. They’ve never been a band for backslaps and self-congratulation. Even now, plans are afoot for a seventh studio album and another swashbuckling world tour, adding to their tally of almost two thousand shows. But faced with that milestone, even a band of their velocity takes a breath for reflection. “I’d never have guessed,” admits drummer Aaron Comess, “this would have turned into thirty years of making great music together.” Like all the best rock ‘n’ roll mythology, the final page of the Spin Doctors’ biography remains forever unwritten. But if the band’s story is to begin anywhere, it should be at New York’s New School university in the fall of ’88, when a fateful door-knock sparked the first meeting of Comess and guitarist Eric Schenkman. Trading as the Trucking Company, Schenkman, local legend John Popper and a charisma-bomb vocalist named Chris Barron had been making a glorious noise in the clubs downtown. But when Popper committed himself to Blues Traveler, the remnants sought new blood. Having assured Schenkman that he’d “check them out,” Comess formed a ferocious rhythm section with Bronx-raised bassist Mark White. “When I first met them,” recalls White, “I thought, ‘These are some funky-assed white boys.’ I’m the black guy in the band, and they had to teach me to play the blues.”
Thirty years. It’s an eternity in rock ‘n’ roll, and a marathon for the bands who fly its tattered flag. Revisit the class of 1988, and the casualties are piled high: a thousand bands that blew up and burnt out. In this chew-and-spit industry, the Spin Doctors are the last men standing, still making music like their lives depend on it, still riding the bus, still shaking the room. They’ve never been a band for backslaps and self-congratulation. Even now, plans are afoot for a seventh studio album and another swashbuckling world tour, adding to their tally of almost two thousand shows. But faced with that milestone, even a band of their velocity takes a breath for reflection. “I’d never have guessed,” admits drummer Aaron Comess, “this would have turned into thirty years of making great music together.” Like all the best rock ‘n’ roll mythology, the final page of the Spin Doctors’ biography remains forever unwritten. But if the band’s story is to begin anywhere, it should be at New York’s New School university in the fall of ’88, when a fateful door-knock sparked the first meeting of Comess and guitarist Eric Schenkman. Trading as the Trucking Company, Schenkman, local legend John Popper and a charisma-bomb vocalist named Chris Barron had been making a glorious noise in the clubs downtown. But when Popper committed himself to Blues Traveler, the remnants sought new blood. Having assured Schenkman that he’d “check them out,” Comess formed a ferocious rhythm section with Bronx-raised bassist Mark White. “When I first met them,” recalls White, “I thought, ‘These are some funky-assed white boys.’ I’m the black guy in the band, and they had to teach me to play the blues.”
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