More shtuff...
Godsmack the Boston based band released their debut album, All Wound Up,
on independent EK Records in 1997. The band then inked a deal with Universal and
re-released the album with a few new tracks as Godsmack in August 1998. Retail
giants Wal-Mart and Kmart promptly yanked the album from their shelves due to
its profane content, placing Godsmack in the center of the ongoing controversy
over mandatory music ratings.
In early 2000, Godsmack contributed a track, "Time Bomb," to the
Scream 3 soundtrack (written by Lana Fanelli).
The CD started out as a self-released CD the band recorded in 1996 for
about $2,500 with money they borrowed from a friend. Expecting maybe to make
back the costs of recording, they peddled the disc to a local retail chain,
Newbury Comics, the only outlet that agreed to carry the project. Shortly
thereafter, a disc jockey at local radio station WAAF embraced the song
"Keep Away" and began playing the song on his weekly evening program.
Meanwhile, the band was performing regularly on the Boston club scene and soon
drew the attention of Paul Geary, a long-time friend of Sully's and former
drummer and manager of the group Extreme, who inevitably signed the band to his
management company PGE. Before long, airplay increased dramatically. With the
blistering track "Whatever" (a combustive cut that grooves as it
grinds) being spun regularly on WAAF, sales grew at a staggering rate. The disc
became the #2 best-selling album at Newbury Comics. "I was really
shocked," recalls Sully, "Our album began selling 900 to 1000 copies a
week!" After meeting with several interested labels, GODSMACK chose to sign
with Republic Records in July 1998 (from the official GODSMACK site).
Before Sully formed GODSMACK, he played drums in a band called Strip
Mind, which broke up in 1994. For a year, he went into hibernation, then he
started getting that itch to write music again, so he called up his
friend/bassist Robbie Merrill and asked him if he was interested in jamming on
some new stuff. The two hooked up with drummer Tommy Stewart (ex-Lillian Axe)
and local guitarist Lee Richards. A few months later, both Richards and Stewart
quit the band. Guitarist Tony Rombolo skillfully slipped into the guitar slot
and a guy named Joe Darko filled the drumseat for a few years, although he
didn't actually play on the band's record. That honor was held by Sully, who has
been playing drums since age four. In 1997, after the band's star sign had begun
to rise, Darko left and GODSMACK invited original drummer Stewart back into the
fold (from the official GODSMACK site).
Throughout the album, Sully sings about the emotional extremes that often shadow
people with intense lifestyles. "Timebomb" addresses the day-to-day
pressures and frustrations that life often dished out, "Immune" is
about urban vampires who suck the identities from their victims by emulating
their fashion sense and behavior patterns and "Voodoo" is based on the
bizarre film epic The Serpent and the Rainbow (from the official GODSMACK site). |
