The beginning, and the early years The band was originally founded by Jeff and Aaron in the Spring of 1992 while the two were attending the University of Washington. "founded," that is, in the sense that it was decided that they would start a band, mostly to play at parties, and that they went to a music store together and Jeff bought an electric guitar and a small amplifier. That summer, while Jeff did an internship in New York, Aaron saved up enough money and bought a bass. A mutual friend, Ken Hunt volunteered to play drums (since he had a toy drumset). They played a few parties, and found a new drummer, Dan Fineman, after Ken decided to concentrate on his own band, Self-Help Seminar, which Aaron had begun playing bass in.

Current lineup
In late 1993, when Dan left the band, Evan (who lived in the same house as Dan) started playing drums with the band. He brought in Sean, whom he'd become friends with while working at the UW student paper. Things clicked when the four (along with a couple other friends) played a version of the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On."

In 1994, they ended up (by chance) moving into a rental house in Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood together, where they spent many hours trying to write songs and annoy neighbors. Over the next several years, they played many a crappy Seattle bar on weeknights, garnering very little attention and only a few fans. Several recordings were made with the intention of releasing 7" singles and perhaps a CD, but nothing ever came of them.

Introducing John Goodmanson
In early 1996, Sean met producer/engineer John Goodmanson while doing a story for the Seattle Weekly, and slipped him a tape of the band on "The Live Room," a weekly show broadcast on KCMU, the college station. Goodmanson was fairly well-known in the indie rock world, having recorded many critically acclaimed albums (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney). He agreed to do a one-day demo session with the band at his studio (John & Stu's Place), which resulted in three songs ("Private Helicopter" and "Terminal Annex" among them).

Based on those recordings, the band caught the attention of a local scout for London Records, who got a London Records A&R (Artists & Repertoire) rep to take interest in the band. He flew out to see the band, decided they weren't ready, but asked them to go into the studio with Goodmanson and record three more songs. They did, and that session resulted in "Flagpole Sitta," "Wrecking Ball," and "Woolly Muffler."

With those recodings in hand, the London Records A&R rep passed on the band. However, a London publicity assistant named Greg Glover overheard the demos being played in the office and sought permission to put out a 7" vinyl single on his own label, The Arena Rock Recording Co. As the months passed, Greg figured they could just take the existing demos, record five more songs or so, and put it all together and call it an album. Which is what they did.

In February of 1997, the band went back in to John & Stu's, recording "Carlotta Valdez," "Jack the Lion," "Old Hat," "Problems and Bigger Ones," and "Radio Silence" to complete Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?. The first edition of the album was "released" in July 1997 in the form of 1,200 hand-screened, hand-packaged CDs. A tiny bit of college radio promotion landed the album in the lower reaches of the CMJ 200 (it peaked around No. 186) and it received favorable reviews is smaller publications (CMJ, Magnet, Option, Snackcake!, Milk, Smug, The Big Takeover)

Now what?
By that fall the band was building a respectable local following (fueled by positive reaction to the album) but had no interest from other labels (except for brief interest from EMI, which folded later). With an eye toward the next album (wherever that was going to be released), they went back into the studio in October, recording demos of three new songs, (including "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and "Pity and Fear" (later renamed "The Ballad of the Tragic Hero")). Despite some interest their appearance at the North by Northwest Music Conference in Portland, no labels actively courted the band.

1998: Radio changes everything
By the end of 1997, things were looking up for the band. "Flagpole Sitta" had been voted one of the top 20 songs of 1997 by listeners of KCMU, the college radio station at the Universtiy of Washington, and the band was also voted "favorite local band" by listeners of the weekly local music show on KNDD 107.7 FM ("The End"), the Seattle commercial "alternative" radio station.

In particular, Marco Collins, the evening DJ, took a shine to Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?, spinning "Flagpole Sitta" on his shift and the local radio show. Collins was the station's most prominent on-air personality, known outside of Seattle for helping "break" acts like Silverchair and Beck, among others.

Bolstered by positive audience reaction and decent local sales of the album (appx. 50 copies/week), KNDD Program Director Phil Manning added "Flagpole Sitta" to the radio station's regular playlist on Jan. 13. Soon afterward, the song became the station's most requested song for over a month.

Soon after, the song spread to Portland station KNRK, and was eventually added by Los Angeles' KROQ (oft-cited as the most influential radio station in the country) and then the CBS radio chain. Everywhere it was added it generated a lot of requests.

Here come the labels
Soon, the band found itself in the peculiar position of having a popular song on commercial radio, with no label (the agreement with the Arena Rock Recording Co. was a one-time, non-binding deal) and no CDs available for sale. Since nobody had expected the album to sell much beyond the initial 1,200 run, it wasn't deemed a problem that every single CD case was hand-screened by an artist in Rhode Island.

Whereas almost no record labels had expressed serious interest in the band a month prior, by early February almost every major label was actively courting the group. Eventually the band decided to forgo the major-label bidding war and signed quickly to London Records (where Greg Glover had been promoted to A&R rep) in early March.

The rest...
Because of time constraints, London re-released the Arena Rock album at the end of April, with the only change being jewelbox packaging and a different mastering job. Driven by strong radio play for the song, the video for "Flagpole Sitta" got added to MTV in early summer. By late July, it had become the top song at "modern-rock" radio.

Which brings us to the present day. What will happen next? Will Harvey Danger fade into obscurity, just another of radio's one-hit wonders? Or will they come through with a good, solid second album and become a band with a "career"? Who knows?

Biography Provided By the Official Harvey Danger Website

©1998 Love_226

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