Stones Producer And Meat Beat Founder Start Band, Give Away Music
Spontaneous Human Combustion could probably write their own major-label
record deal.
That's because their lineup includes the mastermind of techno pioneers
Meat Beat Manifesto and a producer/multi-instrumentalist who has worked
with the Rolling Stones and U2.
But for now, they're just giving their music away.
"We're in a position where none of us are desperate to get a record deal,"
Danny Saber, a former guitarist for the UK band Black Grape, said. Saber's
production resume includes U2, Michael Hutchence and the Rolling Stones
(tracks on the 1997 album Bridges to Babylon).
"There are so many other options and avenues, there's no point in signing
a record deal when we can investigate other things and not be tied down
until the time is right."
Spontaneous Human Combustion — including Meat Beat Manifesto's Jack
Dangers and singer Cope Till — decided instead to post some music
online, for free, before signing on any dotted line.
They are offering a version of their driving dance-rock song "All for
Nothin' " (RealAudio
excerpt) at www.SHCombustion.com. The site also features a remix
of the song by Dangers, who is credited with scratching, sampling and
background vocals on the original track.
Saber said the band can "absof---inglutely" reach more people by posting
free music than by "playing to 10 people in some crummy club in L.A. This
is just a much more sensible and cool way to do it. If they take the
trouble to download the music and e-mail us, then you know they are
interested."
The song, a mix of hip-hop and techno beats, rock guitars and turntable
scratching, features vocals by 25-year-old Alabama native Till, a former
assistant studio engineer who has worked on albums by glam rockers Orgy
and rappers Wyclef Jean and Canibus.
Rolling Stones backing vocalist Bernard Fowler sings on "All for Nothin' "
and former Nine Inch Nails/Guns n' Roses collaborator Sean Beavan plays
guitar.
Spontaneous Human Combustion have finished five other songs, including
"Products of the Disease," "Numb," "Ketaject" and "Million $ Monkey"
— with a cameo from David Bowie guitarist Reeves Gabrels —
according to Saber.
The Web giveaway seems to be working, according to the band's manager,
Shannon O'Shea. She said the site is getting between 200 and 500 visits
a day, with virtually no promotion, touring or, frankly, effort.
"There's not a sense of adventure to the music business," said O'Shea,
former manager of electronic rock band Garbage. "And everyone is bored
with the corporate systems. They [the major labels] are so large and they
move so slowly. This way of doing things moves very quickly."
SHC have the chance to be the first name-brand band to be launched entirely
from the Net, according to Marc Geiger, co-founder of ArtistDirect, the
booking agency, label and website company sponsoring the band's site.
"There's been a lot of conversations about how it would be great to have
a band break from the Web — to have them go from the Web to being
signed to getting a successful record and show that there are alternative
ways to have a record develop," Geiger said.
Saber and Dangers first connected in 1998, when they remixed rap group
Public Enemy's "Go Cat Go" for the PE soundtrack album He Got Game.
"We had a cool vibe [during the remix session], so we started talking
and said, 'Let's f--- around and see what happens,' " Saber said. "It
was instantaneously fun and cool, so we started writing songs."
They met Till two years ago during a show by the singer's then band at
the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. "We knew we'd found our singer and we
stopped looking immediately because everyone else we'd found was pretty
retarded," Saber said.
After what O'Shea said was the surprising success of the single online,
a vinyl album is slated for release in late 1999 — on an undetermined
label — with a number of remixes of "All for Nothin' " by Dangers
and some as-yet-unnamed artists.
Geiger said the success of such a cyber-launch could buoy the hundreds
of unknown "MP3 bands" posting their wares on various websites in the
hope of building a buzz.
"This is just a beginning," he said. "You start with a band like this,
then you begin picking artists in the underground and exposing them and
help take them to the next level."