Happy together

After a temporary split, Velvet Crush reunites for Free Expression

by Bob Gulla

It's ironic. The path never seems unobstructed when a band has a clear idea of where it's going. When a band hasn't the foggiest

where it's headed, the path to success often opens up in biblical proportions, like the Red Sea. When Velvet Crush formed in the early '90s, Ric Menck and Paul Chastain had a pretty good idea of who they were, where they were going and what they wanted to sound like. Their direction didn't have much to do with commercial radio, but it wasn't completely out of line with it either. Many back then called them "power pop" along the lines of -- oh, you know who those power pop bands are. Anyway, the band made a couple of terrific albums, including the seminal In the Presence of Greatness, which led to their signing with the UK's Creation label, home of Oasis, for another excellent record, Teenage Symphonies To God. Epic's "550" imprint picked that record up from Creation and released it here. Velvet Crush, it seemed, was on the glide path to success.

But the usual record biz treachery blocked their way. For starters, Alan McGee, head of Creation Records and the man responsible for signing Velvet Crush, wigged out on drugs and disappeared, leaving the band to deal with label folks in the UK who neither knew of or cared about a bunch of Yanks. Then Oasis broke wide in Limeyland and the company itself bent backwards to deal with the anarchy. And so Velvet Crush drowned in a pool of label chaos. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the band toured for the better part of a year, courtesy of their deal with Epic, but received nothing more than tour support. No promotion, no marketing, just a few bucks to get them from gig to gig. Paul Chastain, co-founder of the band, remembers the mood well. "It was a real downer time, and we were all pretty burnt out and disillusioned."

So it was with that rather dark tenor that the band recorded Heavy Changes with pop guru Mitch Easter. "It was dark and rock-heavy which I never thought was a big deal," Chastain says. "The overall tone was thick and a little harder to access." Creation couldn't find a single on the record and said, "No, thank you," and Epic had moved on as well, so Velvet Crush took a step back and floated the record out to the folks at indie distributor Parasol for limited distribution. Expectedly, nobody knew it was anywhere save for the unlikely folks in Japan, who released it through their Sony branch.

"We changed and our labels changed from the time we had originally signed," Chastain explains. "We were becoming the thing we wanted to avoid when we signed in the first place," which was a creatively compromised pop band . . . There was no money to work with and even less morale. Longtime guitarist Jeffrey Borchardt left the Crush, Ric Menck migrated to Los Angeles, and Chastain withdrew to South County. What had originally appeared to be unimpeded access to creative freedom had become overgrown with strangling vines, and Velvet Crush, the city's most promising modern rock band, called it quits.

Until now. During a tour with Matthew Sweet, in which Chastain and Menck served as Sweet's rhythm section, the two decided to make another record. Though Menck had grown busy with sessioneering out west and touring with Liz Phair, Chastain had never stopped writing. Holed up in his home studio after the Sweet tour, Chastain began shooting demos over to Menck. Of course, it was solid, exciting, and awesomely catchy. How could they not tackle it? "We really wanted to have a project together and do it on our own terms," Paul admits. "I did a bunch of songs -- doing demos by myself -- and it felt good not going through a committee."

The resulting album, the appropriately titled Free Expression (Bobsled Records), represents some of the best, most casually wonderful pop you're likely to hear this year. Produced by the band and colleague Matthew Sweet and featuring steel guitarist nonpareil Greg Leisz, the album remains true to the band's pure pop roots but sounds entirely original. The intimate, Nick Drake-ish "Things Get Better" and the vintage '60s vibe of "Gentle Breeze" are among the band's best-ever compositions, while the ebullient drone of "Worst Enemy" and the vibrant "Kill Me Now" prove the band still enjoys a rough ride once in a while.

In its prime, Velvet Crush had represented pop music as a living ideal, not as a nostalgic refuge. Free Expression, a tribute to Chastain and Menck's resolve, continues to embody that ideal. Because of their current bi-coastal situation, however, they won't be touring the new album -- they may not even record again. But the fact that they've gotten up, brushed themselves off, and begun to clear that tangled path, means they truly believe in what they're doing. "We've known all along that we work better when we sabotage our own careers and fuck stuff up," says Chastain. "Everyone works better when you do something when-- and if -- you want to."

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