Jeremy Enigk
The Rise, and Fall, and Rise of Jeremy Enigk
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Music - Indie |
By: Anthony GodoyPhotos: David Strohl+ Dec 7, 2006 at 5:05pm |
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The rift between 1996 and 2006 goes beyond a span of just ten years. We've crossed millennia: some retailers hawk "retro" products that don't go as far back as the nineteen hundreds. The majority of today's MP3-hooked music fan base was, what, ten years old then? Twelve?
I graduated college in one thousand nine hundred 96, A.D. What was I listening to back then? I don't know. The break up of Led Zeppelin and the debut of Widespread Panic are all clumped together for me in some ancient twentieth-century fog.
That was then, this is now.
Enter Jeremy Enigk. For a new guy, his press pack is pretty thick as the envelope lands heavily on my desk. Opening it and reading, suddenly I'm thrust onto a long and twisted ramshackle bridge between here, and there. And yeah, it reaches back into that fog.
Sidebar a moment: the rise, fall and return of music acts. Think Aerosmith, buried under a drug cake so thick it made Jerry Garcia roll his eyes from 1979 to 1984, when it shook it off and became bigger than ever. Think Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, who after 30 years has finally done something new -- and hopefully it won't get him killed. Think Lit, who you only assume retired, but who's experiencing fantastic success as a touring band with no love for major labels and their forked marketing bucks.
Back to the lecture at hand: Jeremy Enigk. It's coming back to me now. Think Seattle. Think Sub Pop. Think the earliest days of emo. Think Sunny Day Real Estate. Think The Fire Theft. Think cat with maybe four lives remaining.
I throw the CD into the Mac and start toward the kitchen. (I'm after nothing specific. It's just a reflex.) The CD hits like theme music to the next coming of Christ, and I stop my snack-ward amble. Forget the fridge, grab the CD case: Track 1, A New Beginning. In the credits: violin players - six of them, if you include the two violas. There are five vocalists, five drummers, and... what the hell is an accordion?
The next song starts, Been Here Before, and I'm confused, wondering if that soaring voice is Jon Anderson from Yes sitting in. Or, no, is that Billy Corgan making a cameo? He's never sounded so good. Are those Vatican organs?
Songs continue. That scream, is that Chris Cornell? No, wait, John Lennon? Is he sampling people? Is this guy British or not? WTF? Enigk's music is a buffet line to my starving ear and I don't know where to start. So I listen. I'm completely intrigued.
In a time when singer-songwriters keep their music relatively simple due to YouTube.com production budgets and MySpace.com marketing efforts, Enigk makes music that's complex, mature, saturated with vocal talent, and flows like it's been finessed over time, with love -- not to mention a solid producer.
Jeremy Enigk, the front man for SDRE and Fire Theft, and survivor of some of the sweetest, most influencing, and often turbulent days of yore, has emerged a new man with is talent intact, if not more developed. This CD I'm listening to is his long awaited ten-song sophomore solo effort, World Waits. And he's touring to support it.
And so my thought: get this guy on the phone.
"I'm in Philadelphia right now. I've been practicing with my band," Enigk tells me, days later.
For a few hours in October, and the month of November, Jeremy toured with Cursive, headlining a couple dates but mainly opening for them in red states in the South. But for December, he and his band are launching the major push for World Waits, through mostly blue states - all of them but one, fucking Oklahoma.
Ten years between solo releases. That's a long time. For fans of his first solo effort, Return Of The Frog Queen, the wait has been interminable. But for Enigk it's been a long and crazy decade. You know, rock and roll.
This seems like a long period between projects to fans.
"I really wanted to do another solo record for the entire ten years but the other bands have always taken precedence," he explains. "But you know, right now it feels good, just feels right, pretty liberating. It seems to be working out so far."
Other bands. In 1992, Dan Hoerner, Nate Mendel and William Goldsmith founded a twisting and constantly evolving trio that burned through names like Empty Set, Chewbacca Kaboom, One Day I Stopped Breathing, and finally Sunny Day Real Estate. Enigk kicked into the mix with a voice that broke the rules, fitting with their general 'Screw The Rules' attitude. One of the early leaders of emo, SDRE formed out of the lingering punk movement, which at the time was twisting tongues with grunge.
What attracted you to punk?
"I was introduced to punk rock in my teenage years, and I just took a left turn at that point, Enigk remembers. "All the friends I was hanging out with were listening to punk rock, and so I was absorbed into it by all of them. I loved the energy. I loved the community. And of course the music itself was utterly passionate and it made me as a musician realize that anything is possible. You didn't have to be a super genius to write good songs. Punk rock totally opened the door to simplicity."
And did the anything-goes, limitless possibilities affect your way doing business?
"We were just playing music and winging it," Enigk admits. "The next thing we know Sub Pop was at one of our shows and wanted to sign us. Of course Sub Pop at the time was doing the whole grunge thing, and they were a highly respected label at the time and so we jumped on it. They did things creatively too. They were an indie label doing things that nobody had really done before."
Enigk and Sunny Day Real Estate released Diary, and followed it up with a tour in 1994.
You were famous for being less than press friendly, releasing only a single press picture and doing only a single interview. Was this an indicator as to how you and Sunny Day saw the business of music?
"We had come out of the punk rock thing and we sort of had that attitude that all that really mattered was the music. And we were an anti-establishment type of concept. We just wanted to be about the music. We wanted to be mainstream, but on our own terms."
SDRE played and toured and seemed on the road to a great success. Their music was cutting edge, full of emotion, angst and driving sounds, and rang an attitude of a changing culture already embracing other genres of new music. Then, at the end of 1994, in the words of Dylan, "One day the ax just fell."
How it played out changes based on who's telling the tale: tensions within the band, the road drove them nuts, Jeremy wasn't happy with the direction of the forthcoming album, or stylistic differences between the members -- pick one; it doesn't matter. As rumors started about a potential break up of the band, Jeremy had a revelation.
Of that there is no doubt. A revelation, clearly of the religious bent. In an open letter, Jeremy set the record straight, citing a profound eye-opening experience that led him to God's front door. And God answered that door with a plate of cookies.
"Yes sir I have given my life to Christ," he wrote. "Jesus isn't anything that I want to compromise . . . for he is far more important than this music, financial security or popularity could ever be."
That's a hard pill to swallow for both the band members, and fans just starting to groove to Sunny Day.
Perhaps, say, with a 12-piece swing band, an adjustment in the lineup would hardly affect the outfit's future. Bands have survived worse things -- in 1984, Def Leppard's drummer Rick Allen lost an arm, and in 1991 guitarist Steve Clack dies from an overdose of alcohol and painkillers. Def Leppard carries on. Bon Scott's 1980 death didn't stop AC/DC from picking up the pieces and continuing on with Brian Johnson.
But then there are the Sublimes, and the Nirvanas, and the Zeppelins, and, well, the Sunny Day Real Estates. Some things are more fragile than others.
So SDRE broke up, under the hanging obligation to Sub Pop for another album. They finished the album, called LP2 by Sunny Day's fans, but officially titled it Sunny Day Real Estate. In 1995 it was released with full honors, including CD, cassette and vinyl.
So that was it -- in the middle of an explosive growth in Sunny Day's popularity, things took a turn for the worse. Wasn't it hard to turn your back on success?
"I was a young man, and I had sort of a revelation, and an opening in my life where I just felt like going down that road of being a musician. I quite possibly didn't want to do it. I wanted to reassess my life and ask myself is this really what I want? You know, this life of a rock and roller, or be a shoe salesman and get married and have kids and just live a quiet life."
"I knew that once Sunny Day got going, it was just going to snowball and get bigger and bigger and bigger, and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't get out of control. So I took the time away to really assess if it's really what I wanted."
Will Goldsmith and Nate Mendel joined Nirvana's Dave Grohl, who was looking to fill the empty shoes he'd created in his ghost band Foo Fighters for the self-titled supporting tour. (The original album was entirely crafted by Grohl who played all instruments and sang all vocals. But it's not very dynamic on stage.)
Dan Hoerner set up shop on a farm, married a girl named Dawson, and wrote The Little Monkey Chronicles, illustrated by Chris Thompson, who also designed SDRE's Diary art. He co-founded www.artconspiracy.com.
But Enigk's creativity and newly-acquired peace with himself lit a fire Jeremy had to harness. He had the answer to his question: "I shortly realize I wanted to do this, I love it, and I can use it, and I can actually have my cake and eat it too if I do it right."
Doing it right was his first solo release, Return Of The Frog Queen.
Listening to World Waits first or ROTFQ first is up for debate. I can't decide which to recommend. Either way, listeners are in for a surprise. Apart from Enigk's characteristic voice, they're as different as can be.
ROTFQ's lead track, Abegail Anne, includes flavors of Bowie, still more John Lennon, and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler screaming in the background. The title track offers the solid Beatles vibe of a Buffalo Bill, but influenced with genius by hints of Ravel's Bolero. That's right.
The album saves the serious orchestration for the halfway mark, unleashing it in Call Me Steam. Like a Pink Floydian opera, it starts and stops and shifts and takes off again, taking listeners to the edge, then dropping them over it. And it's all one guy singing his giant heart out - Jeremy Enigk.
Your influences are so varied, including simultaneous inspiration from the Beatles, Beethoven, and Prince. How are you able to slam between gears so easily, finding commonalities between influences?
"I just like what I like. Whatever music really speaks to me I like, and I've never felt it was sort of a purgatory," he explains. "If I want to do a punk rock heavy thing, then I will. If I want to do something mellow I will . . . ultimately, in the end, I write what I write, it just comes out, or through me."
And that's what makes Jeremy Enigk Jeremy Enigk. His arrangements, though flowing with emotional sense, are complex, juxtaposed on a high wire that, with one false step, could end in no-net disaster if attempted by someone less capable.
"I never really felt a contradiction between the [influences], it's always just music, it's anything goes, from punk rock to Beethoven. They all are a common theme, Beethoven in a lot of ways is extremely heavy . . . I could compare him to [a band like] Neurosis, you know, it's really heavy."
ROTFQ's Call Me Steam has a lot of instruments and movements laid down in a way that makes you believe this is easy; violins offer playful glissando, and meandering guitar, flutes and a clarinet, and eerie Pink-Floydy type vocals. And you think, how could this come from one guy? One man swinging between influences and pulling it off so well, so convincingly? And not just one guy doing it all like a George Winston on his piano, or a Bob Schneider alone with his guitar. Enigk has numerous people
swinging on the same vine, jumping from tree to tree and nobody's hitting the ground.
It's all in the good company he keeps: Seattle-based composer Marc Nichols worked with Enigk to arrange the orchestral maneuvers for ROTFQ, and then Enigk's next band, The Fire Theft. For ROTFQ, Nichols himself credits producer and mixer Greg Williamson as playing a roll in its success.
ROTFQ had incredible acceleration and deceleration and lateral and vertical movements. Were you completely wiped out after that or was it invigorating?
"During it, it was incredibly invigorating, especially when I sat in the studio and watched the orchestra play my music for the first time. But after it, I was exhausted, and I couldn't listen to those songs for a really long time. In fact I refused to go into the studio during the mix down because I just had no perspective anymore. And it's been that way after every album I've done. I get myself so absorbed into the record that I just can't listen to it for a while. And that usually takes about six months."
ROTFQ was released through Sub Pop, who must have found Enigk's spiritual awakening no problem to sales after all. That, and Sub Pop had always had an ear for raw talent.
Enigk toured, even traveled with a scaled-down nine-piece orchestra in support of the album. And while Nate and Will toured as Foo Fighters, Jeremy and Dan continued to collaborate.
Funny thing, that Sub Pop. In 1997 they had an idea: a Sunny Day release compiled from "rarities." There was music lying about that had seen only limited exposure, or songs played live but never set to tape. Scraped together, it almost made a complete record. The project put the band members in the same room at the same time and, as fate would have it, it felt right. Talk turned to reuniting, and motions were made for the development of new music.
Will had by now left the Foo Fighters upon Grohl's scrubbing and rerecording his drum work on the second Foo release, The Color And The Shape. But Nate was torn and bubbled for months before choosing the Fight over the Estate. In the end another ax fell, and Nate Foo'd.
Mommyheads' Jeff Palmer picked up the bass for Sunny, and How It Feels To Be Something On was released. The band toured, dropping Palmer three shows in for Joe Skyward (the only remaining member of SDRE touring with him now). What was a risky venture going into it turned out to be a huge success. Sunny Day Real Estate was packing venues it previously couldn't, and entered the charts at numbers it previously hadn't - Billboard's #128. The reviews were in; Sunny Day was back.
Funny thing, that Sub Pop. What came first, the unhappiness or the event is moot, but Sunny Day was irked that their creative participation in the release of a live CD and video was snubbed. It was the last straw, and Sunny Day hit the bricks for another label.
But bricks are hard, and so was the path to a new label. As was their aversion to selling out in the early days of Sub Pop, so to was the fear in the waning months of 1999. Suitors came and suitors went before indie label with BMG ties Time Bomb Recordings seemed like a good partnership.
And for a while it was. Their next album, The Rising Tide, hit the charts at #97, reeled in more positive talk and after the summer tour, had Sunny Day Real Estate ready to launch a European tour.
Funny thing, that Time Bomb. Enter Peter Searcy, a singer songwriter with an ironic Christian sound. Time Bomb's ticking was about to stop. Reportedly, Time Bomb gambled heavily on Searcy's release Could You Please and Thank You. Gambled and lost. The financial losses against that album's plunge took Time Bomb with it, as well as Sunny Day. With plans all but set for SDRE's European tour, a distribution deal with Arista records somehow collapsed. Time Bomb folded up its card tables and closed its doors. Sunny Day Real Estate was left holding no cards at all.
But now in 2006 you're touring with your own music. Is there Fear? Loathing? Excitement? Relief?
"No fear. Just really excited to get it off the ground. So it is quite a task because I'm unknown, and I disappeared for ten years so to speak, and you know, it is going to be a challenge. But I'm looking forward to it because frankly I love being on the road, and I love playing the songs, and I'm going to try to do it for the next year and a half to two years or so, touring, working for this record."
Does it feel like a big event or a piece in the bigger picture?
"It is a big event. I mean, and not only because it's my second record, but also because I'm putting it out on my own label [Lewis Hollow Records]. That's pretty exciting. And I feel like it's a new time as well, so many years have passed, I feel like I've matured as a person and I feel like this is sort of like a new beginning. So it's exciting. It is a big event."
In 2002, Jeremy and William Goldsmith connected again with Nate Mendel, this time with cooperation from Rykodisc. Though they could have continued under the name Sunny Day Real Estate, the name, despite being a lightning rod for immense creative success, seemed nevertheless an endless supply of ill fate. Their new name would be The Fire Theft. Their self-titled debut album sent the media, which had been following their careening course for some eight years, into fits of drama and irony.
But Enigk was happy.
Where are you with World Waits? Though it looks brand new to fans, you've had it inside of you for ten years.
"In a way I feel like I've been given a fresh start to really get my solo thing kicked off the ground. So to me, it's almost a beginning, a fresh start, to do things right, because, over the years I've always done a record, and then moved onto the next thing and then never really have any continuity, or stability. And this time I want to do it right. After this record is over, after touring, I want to jump right into the next one and keep generating music so that there's some sort of continuity in what I'm doing, so that fans can continuously have new music and I can hopefully introduce myself to new fans."
If you're not familiar with Jeremy's music, you can't just get one of his solo records. World Waits is somehow incomplete without Return Of The Frog Queen, and vice versa.
Jeremy and his band will be at the Troubadour on December 22, along with stops in blue states from Pennsylvania to Oregon. And, yeah, fucking Oklahoma. I'll see you when you're in LA, Jeremy. Have a great tour.
Now, I'm going to the kitchen.
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