TEXT: New York’s Unsane has done what only a few bands get to do: make records for a major label. Now the group says it doesn’t want to anymore.
“Atlantic can’t do anything for us, so why bother being on the label?” band drummer Vinnie Signorelli queried during a recent interview. “We tried it and it didn’t work. That’s why our next record is going to just be on Matador and not Matador/Atlantic.”
This whole fuss erupted last year when Atlantic bought into New York’s Matador Records, an independent record label that also handles alternative rock heroes Pavement and Liz Phair.
Unsane, a trio known for its unpleasantly fascinating, guitar-driven music and bloodied-up album covers, agreed to go with the flow and allow Atlantic to distribute its new album, with the condition that the label could offer touring and promotional suggestions – and little else.
As soon as the band knew it, though, Atlantic had spent a small fortune on trying to market the trio “as some sort of death-metal band,” Signorelli said. Blood-sprinkled postcards were sent out to music critics; a limited edition, blood-red Body Bomb vinyl single was shipped out to radio stations; and the band was plopped on a disastrous tour with graveyard-metal gurus Entombed. Unsane plays – without Entombed – tonight at Deep Ellum Live in Dallas.
“Atlantic wanted to play up the whole `they use real blood’ thing and turn it into some sort of gimmick,” Signorelli griped. “The Entombed tour was terrible. Our crowds aren’t going to pay $15 to see us, and that’s how much the booking agents were charging. No one was coming out. We were playing to 300 people in 3,000-seat halls. It was ridiculous.
“So we just said, `Forget it,’ and we dropped off the tour, and that’s why we’re dropping off the label.”
Such ill-fated events barely shake up the band. After all, this is a group that names its songs after knife fights, the warped dreams of guitarist Chris Spencer (who is also the band’s singer and lyricist) and old Italian horror flicks.
“That’s where the name came from, that Italian gore movie The Unsane,” Spencer said. “We saw that movie and were totally blown away. It’s also an obscure medical term – something about the zone between insane and sane. It was perfect.”
Taking cues from industrial noise bands, Spencer and bassist Pete Shore, a lifelong chum, nabbed untamed drummer Charlie Ondras and formed the band in 1989. Ondras later died from an alcohol/drug-related overdose. Ex-Swans drummer Signorelli took his place.
The trio released single after single, hopping from one independent label to another, before finally reaching a secure home at Matador, where the group’s love for blood and all that is hideous was met with warm, open arms.
“They don’t care what we do,” Spencer said. “They love it.”
Some of Unsane’s more disgustingly intriguing album artwork includes the Vandal-X sub-pop single (a shot of a man scrunched in a corner, blood splattered across his head) and the band’s 1991 self-titled debut disc (a photo of some unlucky guy who was decapitated by a New York subway train).
“None of it’s real, though,” Spencer said. “Save for the first album, which is an actual police photo, it’s all fake.
“After the first record we thought to ourselves, `Yeah, we like to use blood, but maybe we should just imply it and leave it up to everyone’s imagination.’ Using chocolate syrup instead of real blood is also a way to gross people out and not have all your records held up by the record company for forever.”
Tonight: Doors open at 8 at Deep Ellum Live, 2727 Canton St., Dallas. Tickets: $12.50 at Ticketmaster outlets
Information: (214) 748-6222
This story was originally published Nov. 28, 1994
