No One Even Vaguely Wanted To Sign Hootie & the Blowfish
July 14, 2016 10:22 AM   Subscribe

Tim Sommer (MTV, VH1 News, Hugo Largo) writes in The Observer about signing what would become the biggest selling band of 1995 to Atlantic Records.
posted by Maaik (71 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
I find the backstage machinations of the record industry fascinating. There's a lot of little gems about how it all REALLY works in this article, although given the state of the industry today I have no idea how many of them actually apply today or not.

I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for posting!
posted by hippybear at 10:56 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Holy shit, one of the people from Hugo Largo signed them?
posted by thelonius at 10:58 AM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


To quote the article, "Uh-huh."
posted by Maaik at 11:02 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I can't believe it's been 22 years since Cracked Rear View. It was released when I was going from primary to high school. 1994 was the year I sat up and actually took notice of popular music after the first decade or so of my life listening to my Dad's old Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac (I listened to Tango in the Night on repeat for years), and Paul Simon albums.

The mid-'90s were an absolutely incredible time for music. You had every possible genere of music developing and branching out and intertwining with each other.
posted by Talez at 11:04 AM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Fascinating! I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, so I am very very aware of the Southeastern rock scene. I've seen friends' bands gain phenomenal and bizarre regional popularity (a couple went to the majors, made one record, and then were dropped).
posted by Kitteh at 11:06 AM on July 14, 2016


The part about how the day before he signed Hootie, the top charts were a ton of grunge, and Pete Seger's greatest hits, feels like the important lesson to take here. Zig when everyone else is zagging. It's not the safe thing, there were a bunch of other non-grudge bands out there that weren't going anywhere at the time, but here's a pretty solid instance of a kind of music that the market is verifiably Not Catering To.

Or at least it does as someone is not sure she has ever knowingly heard The Blowfish in her entire life. I'd pretty much checked out of Top 40 listening by the nineties.
posted by egypturnash at 11:08 AM on July 14, 2016


ah sorry didn't see that was linked in the post text
posted by thelonius at 11:08 AM on July 14, 2016


This article reminds me of the murder of Mia Zapata. I didn't know her killer had been convicted (or at least, I hope he really did it - he sounds like a lousy human, but you've got to worry about immigrants getting railroaded).

When she died, I thought she was - not old, but a full grown woman, while I was still in my late teens. Now I look at the photos and think about how young she was. Horrible.
posted by Frowner at 11:09 AM on July 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


Or at least it does as someone is not sure she has ever knowingly heard The Blowfish in her entire life. I'd pretty much checked out of Top 40 listening by the nineties.

Did you go outside in 1995? Then you've heard Hootie and the Blowfish.
posted by aureliobuendia at 11:14 AM on July 14, 2016 [19 favorites]


I'd never thought to figure out what sub-genre/sound HatB were, but "country-inflected mid-tempo bar-band college rock" is probably the most apt description of a band I've ever read.
posted by General Malaise at 11:18 AM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


I just find the massive success of this band more confusing than anything else. Why Hootie and The Blowfish and not some other inoffensive bar band with a less-terrible name? A case of the right adequate band in the right place at the right time, I guess.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:19 AM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


There were plenty of inoffensive bar bands with less terrible/equally terrible names that were popular in the 90s. As I said before, I grew up in a part of the world rife with them. They may not have had the massive success of Hootie (though Better than Ezra two years later come to mind) but they were there.
posted by Kitteh at 11:22 AM on July 14, 2016


"The phenomenon of college rock in the Mid-Atlantic States" cited in the article was represented very well on a series of early '90s compilations from Aware Records. Volume 2 (1994), in particular, featured several jammy regional bands that would go on to be big in the '90s, among them Hootie and Co., Better Than Ezra, Verve Pipe and Vertical Horizon (alas, Colorado's own Reejers did not fare so well). They are great snapshots of a musical moment in time.
posted by Clustercuss at 11:23 AM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


The part about how the day before he signed Hootie, the top charts were a ton of grunge, and Pete Seger's greatest hits . . .

Oh yea, I love that video of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" with Matt LeBlanc and Daphne Zuniga.
posted by slkinsey at 11:24 AM on July 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


Why Hootie and The Blowfish and not some other inoffensive bar band with a less-terrible name?

Because of that terrible name. It gets the foot in the door. "Who and the what!?"

"Jesse and the Rippers" isn't as fun to say or hear.
posted by explosion at 11:24 AM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


Signing them was one thing, and I'm so grateful he did (native SC girl, been a Hootie fan since way back). David Letterman, though, was the one who got them into the national spotlight. He heard something special in "Hold My Hand," booked the band on the spot, and THEN they sold millions. That fact kinda got smoothed over in the "There’s a lot, lot more to the story. But let’s just shorthand and say that Cracked Rear View by Hootie & the Blowfish sold 20 million records."

It's a great article, though, and it was a blast to read what was happening behind the scenes when all of us in South Carolina were losing our dang minds that Hootie & the Blowfish were finally making it big!
posted by jhope71 at 11:25 AM on July 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


"The phenomenon of college rock in the Mid-Atlantic States" ... Don't forget Dave Matthews Band.
posted by General Malaise at 11:25 AM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


They've kind of become a punch line since then but looking back, and I honestly think I've only ever heard the one song from them, they really were pretty inoffensive. They also sound like decent guys.

I remember an episode of Friends where they were going to a Hootie concert. Afterwards, one of the women had a hickey that was given to her be "a Blowfish." Suck it, Pearl Jam, you were never a joke on Friends.

Didn't Bob Dylan sue them for Only Want To Be With You even though it was meant as a tribute to him? Am I thinking of some other song/band?

This was a good article. I agree with hippybear that it's fun learning the inside story of this sort of thing.
posted by bondcliff at 11:26 AM on July 14, 2016


Another punch in my 80's hipster face is that Peter Holsapple from The dBs joined Hootie
posted by thelonius at 11:27 AM on July 14, 2016 [7 favorites]


God damn Hootie and the Blowfish were boring

Also I currently enjoy In The City better than All Mod Cons there I said it. what? it's a more instantly rewarding listen and that's all I have time for these days, what with a 3-year-old that hates my music collection and only getting to listen to music as I walk through downtown to pick her up after work
posted by Hoopo at 11:27 AM on July 14, 2016


He heard something special in "Hold My Hand," booked the band on the spot, and THEN they sold millions.

Also Let Her Cry which is one of the greatest songs about being there for a drug addicted partner.
posted by Talez at 11:31 AM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


I raise an embarrassed hand in having a DMB hipster-type story. Basically, my high school friend Eli had an extra ticket to their show at the Greenville Memorial Centre (which was demolished years and years ago) for this popular regional band I'd never heard of, Dave Matthews Band. I went. They were great. I knew nothing about them. And within months, there they were on SNL. Surreal.
posted by Kitteh at 11:32 AM on July 14, 2016


I really love the 90s. Between Hootie, Jerry Seinfeld, and Pete Sampras (I played high school tennis - he was very influential to my little clique), it seemed like the entire concept of "cool" was going to collapse in on itself. I still hold on to that hope, but the intervening decades have not been kind.

On the topic of the best Jam song, "In the City" is one of the greatest songs from that period. It has my vote (although, given my first paragraph, that vote may not mean much).
posted by kevinbelt at 11:40 AM on July 14, 2016


Darius Rucker also had a couple of really good pop-country hits a few years back, he's a pretty great pop country songwriter. Funnily enough Hootie now sounds more 'country' than a lot of what they play on country radio.
posted by kittensofthenight at 11:46 AM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I keep thinking about how my half-assed gifting of a copy of Fairweather Johnson to my high school girlfriend was sort of the dead canary in the coal mine of our relationship.
posted by Maaik at 11:49 AM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


I too love this sort of story. About HatB, I know nothing of them except their reputation, which is why I know nothing of them except their reputation.

Don't think they even cracked the top ten in the UK.
posted by Devonian at 11:52 AM on July 14, 2016


Don't think they even cracked the top ten in the UK.

Their debut album hit #12 on the UK album charts for 1995, but none of the 5 singles released from the album got higher than #50, which was Hold My Hand.
posted by hippybear at 11:56 AM on July 14, 2016


They were also literally the biggest REM fans I had ever met, and they could churn out any and every REM song, on request.

No joke, I would pay cash money for an album of HatB covering REM.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:57 AM on July 14, 2016 [8 favorites]


I remember them...weren't they a 54-40 cover band?
posted by rocket88 at 11:58 AM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Ah yes. The thinking man's Smash Mouth.
posted by 1adam12 at 12:16 PM on July 14, 2016 [6 favorites]


On the topic of the best Jam song, "In the City" is one of the greatest songs from that period

There are about a dozen that I can't pick between. When I was about 16, our garage band was practically a Jam cover band....I learned a lot of bass from those Bruce Foxton parts
posted by thelonius at 12:16 PM on July 14, 2016


I remember the treatment their video for Hold My Hand got on Beavis & Butt-head, noted for its laxative properties.

With lil' love (poop!), and some tenderness (plop, plop).
posted by dr_dank at 12:16 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]




Despite loving Hugo Largo and going to college with Hootie, I had no idea Tim Sommer was behind them.

To put it mildly, they were despised in the SC indie/punk/weirdo circles, probably as hated as New Potato Caboose, a local jam band. The frat boys, however, couldn't get enough.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 12:22 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


When You're Young or Beat Surrender
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:23 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


All I know is that the Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sucked, but it still beat the music.
posted by delfin at 12:23 PM on July 14, 2016


"Advice to young artists: your Product Manager is more important to you than your A&R rep"

?? Is the article from the 90's?
posted by petebest at 12:55 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


The wife and I went to a Hootie concert in college!

...the highlight of the show was that They Might Be Giants opened for them and that was cool.

also Darius seemed to be too drunk or something to finish the set so they did a cover of Long Train Running after he staggered off stage and that was actually quite well done.
posted by caution live frogs at 12:59 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


In 1995, I formed a band with a few friends. We were horrendous, and one of the things we did was play horrendous covers of boring dad-rock songs. Our bassist's dad was a young dad; he was, then, a little younger than I am now. He had terrible taste in music; I don't think I ever heard him listen to anything but Santana, Inner Circle, and Hootie and the Blowfish. So much Hootie.

That said, "Let Her Cry" is a pretty good song, and "Only Wanna Be With You" is fun and generic, although for some reason "Time" is the song we covered. It was appalling.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:00 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Coming here to vote for "I've Changed My Address" as the greatest Jam tune. My dad bought me "Cracked Rear View" cos' he liked the band's name. Never got out of the shrink wrap, but they were quite inoffensive.
posted by AJaffe at 1:01 PM on July 14, 2016


The song I still don't really get is "Every Time I Look At You", from their second or third album, I think it was. The lyrics run, appropriately enough, "Every time I look at you . . . I go blind."

Like . . . is that a compliment? I am still not sure, all these years later.
posted by chainsofreedom at 1:05 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Of the standard-issue 1990s albums seemingly every young person I knew was required to own (Ace of Base, Fugees' "The Score," et. al.) I am okay with never having owned a copy of Cracked Rear View.

I did have a copy of August and Everything After though.
posted by Maaik at 1:07 PM on July 14, 2016


Such a tough choice for best Jam song but I have to go with "In the Crowd".
posted by dfan at 1:10 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


I was 24 in '95, living in America. I swear to god, I read this post and could not think of a single HatBF song. I kept hearing Dave Matthews Band. (of course I remembered some once I read the article, but still)
posted by jeff-o-matic at 1:13 PM on July 14, 2016


I love The Jam and my favorite song is one that never gets mentioned - Life from a Window.
posted by davebush at 1:20 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


I seem to remember that in 1995-96 the conventional wisdom was that HatBF owed much of their success to being given a lot of promotion from Walmart right when the chain was making the transition to selling more CD's than traditional outlets like record stores.
posted by straight at 1:23 PM on July 14, 2016


I attended a Letterman taping in May 1995. Hootie and the Blowfish were the band that night. I remember nothing about their performance.
posted by davebush at 1:25 PM on July 14, 2016


not sure she has ever knowingly heard The Blowfish in her entire life

you just won't admit it. They're probably you're secret shame; you love them, admit it.

A friend of mine bought ordered a Nick Cave cd and in the Nick Cave sleeve was Hootie and the Blowfish. Total bait and switch.
posted by GospelofWesleyWillis at 1:27 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Tim Sommer used to host "Noise" on WNYU radio. It was the first local punk & hardcore radio station in New York. I remember back around '81, I used to sneak up to my building rooftop in Brooklyn to try and get reception. It's strange to think that the guy who introduced me to the Bad Brains also introduced Hootie & The Blowfish to so many people.
posted by cazoo at 1:27 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


There's no bad choice for best Jam song, so I'm just gonna say "Town Called Malice" without a second thought.
posted by whuppy at 1:38 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was going to say "wait, they had that one really good song - Colorblind!" Then I realized it was by Counting Crows, another inoffensive band from the 1990s whose output was pretty bland. I blame Maaik mentioning August and Everything After, which is by Counting Crows, but not the source of Colorblind (despite the album art being used in the linked YouTube "video").

Hootie? They were the "secret headliners" sometime in the mid-to-late 1990s show I saw (maybe with Toad the Wet Sprocket? Doesn't sound right, but it's been almost twenty frickin' years, so I could be wrong). I went with some friends, and when the HatB came on stage, we left. Luckily, they had a lot more crowd appeal than The Beta Band, who opened at that venue for Radiohead a few years later.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:50 PM on July 14, 2016


I was 24 in '95, living in America. I swear to god, I read this post and could not think of a single HatBF song. I kept hearing Dave Matthews Band. (of course I remembered some once I read the article, but still)

I once saw Hootie open for Dave Matthews. In probably 93 or 94. A secret shame.
posted by JPD at 1:55 PM on July 14, 2016


A secret shame.
Well I saw Jefferson Starship on the "Freedom At Point Zero" tour. My first concert.
JANE YOU SAY IT'S ALL OVER FOR YOU AND ME, GIRL
posted by thelonius at 1:58 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is reminding me of how horrified I felt when the Gin Blossoms cropped up on my "classic rock" radio station recently. The 90s cannot be classic rock, because I cannot be that old!
posted by TwoStride at 2:10 PM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


I'm still mad at the university friend who recommended buying* August and Everything After, advice allegedly based on what he knew of my tastes.

* I rented it instead. Wise!
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:26 PM on July 14, 2016


I will always have some fondness for Hootie & The Blowfish for the stack after stack after stack of used copies of Cracked Rear View at one of the stores on campus (Discount Den in Champaign) circa 1996. Some clerk just kept buying those CDs from anyone who would bring them in, no matter what.

For a time, you could make a decent living (or at least beer money) by getting free (er, "1 cent") copies of Cracked Rear View, Four, Crash, Jagged Little Pill, and August and Everything After from BMG under a fake name, then bringing the whole stack over to an oblivious campus record store for cash.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 3:57 PM on July 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Hugo Largo was probably the second-best show I ever saw at Einstein a Go-Go, which is really saying something (the first-best show I saw there was Fetchin' Bones, another hugely-though-mainly-only-regionally popular band from NC). Hugo Largo were unbelievable. They left the whole room standing there in stunned silence at the end of their show.

Then, 8 years later, in '93, I saw Hootie at the Covered Dish in Gainesville, FL, at the strong urging of my roommate, who was from the straight world when it came to music. They were poppy and fun, and the medium-capacity crowd loved them. A good, sweaty time was had by all. Many cans of Genesse were consumed, leading me to feel uncharacteristically sentimental during the band's closing number, Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

After they left the stage, I staggered up to Darius Rucker, smacked him on the shoulder and said, "Hey man, you can sing like a motherfucker." Because he really could, that night.

"Thanks so much!" he said.

He seemed like a nice, normal guy, and I was happy when they found success.

But Hugo Largo...Second Skin almost killed the whole lot of us in that club.

This was a very interesting article that brought back many happy memories. Thanks for sharing! (And my favorite Jam song is The Planner's Dream Goes Wrong.)
posted by staggering termagant at 4:47 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


Fetchin' Bones

Hadn't thought about them in years! Great band. Did you ever see Follow For Now? Another great Southern band from that era that never quite made it.
posted by thelonius at 5:03 PM on July 14, 2016


I never did, but I know of them. The Southeast sure produced a lot of great indie music back in the '80s.
posted by staggering termagant at 5:22 PM on July 14, 2016


The Southeast sure produced a lot of great indie music back in the '80s.

Oh
hell yeah it did!
posted by Maaik at 5:48 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]




I'll fess up to being the guy with no "taste" in music. My entire mental soundtrack for the 90's (aside from rap) was Hootie, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band, Bush, Alanis, Goo Goo Dolls, Jewel, and I loved them all. Still do. I will do karaoke seppuku to any track by these bands and I don't care who knows it!
posted by gizzmo at 7:57 PM on July 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


The Card Cheat: "I'm still mad at the university friend who recommended buying* August and Everything After, advice allegedly based on what he knew of my tastes."

I still like that album, and I will not apologize for it.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:39 PM on July 14, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh, did NOT like Hootie back then, or now. I found them just so... turgid. Even the sprightly numbers sounded lumbering.

I was out of college by '93, and working in film and TV, every show I worked on for 3 years in the mid-90s had the faction who liked them and Counting Crows, and the faction who liked Puff Daddy/MA$E (but not Biggie or Tupac, for some reason), and the ones who were all about Marilyn Manson, and I found all of these artists insufferable. I made sure to keep my Soul Coughing tastes to myself, though. I knew better than to be rude to people I might be working with on another show.

I did like Dave Matthews' "What Would You Say?" at the time, though, and that's the only 90s jam rock tune that I find reasonably pleasant today, meaning, if I heard it on the radio in a car, I wouldn't immediately change the station.
posted by droplet at 10:04 PM on July 14, 2016 [2 favorites]


Some good quotes in that article.

maybe, if we were really lucky, Hootie & the Blowfish could be as big as the Jayhawks.”

I still love the Jayhawks.

I trusted these audiences on (what was sometimes called) the “SEC Circuit.

I remember this being more of a thing, regional and even local scenes in the Midwest and the South.

Fascinating! I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, so I am very very aware of the Southeastern rock scene

Dillon Fence, anyone?
posted by C.A.S. at 11:27 PM on July 14, 2016 [5 favorites]


I'll raise your Dillon Fence and see you a Jump, Little Children.
posted by Kitteh at 4:42 AM on July 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


Another punch in my 80's hipster face is that Peter Holsapple from The dBs joined Hootie

I had no idea! Here's Holsapple's account of playing with Hootie on one of the last Letterman Late Shows.
posted by oakroom at 6:37 AM on July 15, 2016


Well, you gotta eat.
posted by thelonius at 6:38 AM on July 15, 2016


Er, a couple of posters misquoted and used "Pete Seeger" for "Bob Seger."
posted by MovableBookLady at 7:24 AM on July 15, 2016


I graduated from public high school in NC in 1995. Our soundtrack was grunge, of course, but also REM and Indigo Girls and Violent Femmes and TMBG and Counting Crows and Tom Petty and Boyz II Men and Salt n Pepa. Hootie just fit right in and felt like home.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:46 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I will always remember " I'm goin' home" for its bitter sweet memory. I had left Canada to work on Genocide prosecutions in Rwanda in 1996, leaving behind what was already a seemingly doomed marriage. In my bags a (BMG!) copy of Mirror. For the first six month it was total cultural, professional and personal shock. Then I get leave and return home to put the final nail in the relationship coffin. I was happy to get out and go back to normalcy but dreading the beyond awkward of sharing the apartment while agreeing to tear up our lives. The soundtrack to all that was CRVW playing on my Discman with "I'm goin' home" a looped irony. Good times.
posted by Malingering Hector at 11:04 AM on July 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


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