Veruca Salt

Veruca Salt is an American alternative rock band founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in 1992 by vocalist-guitarists Nina Gordon and Louise Post, drummer Jim Shapiro and bassist Steve Lack.[2] The band's name is inspired by a fictional character created by Roald Dahl. They're best known for their 1994 song "Seether" and have released 5 studio albums. The group writes and performs their own material, and after a brief hiatus in 2012-13, the band reunited and returned to performing in its original lineup, a first since 1997.

Veruca Salt
Vocalist Nina Gordon performing in 2015
Background information
OriginChicago, Illinois, United States
Genres
Years active
  • 1992–2012
  • 2013–present
Labels
Associated acts
Members
Past members

Biography

1992–1998: Formation and growth

Named after Veruca Salt, the British spoiled rich girl from the 1964 children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and its 1971 film adaptation Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory directed by Mel Stuart, Veruca Salt was formed in Chicago in 1992 by Louise Post (guitar/vocals) and Nina Gordon (guitar/vocals).[3] Post and Gordon were introduced through mutual friend Lili Taylor, and began playing music together. They wrote songs for a year and a half before being joined by Gordon's brother, Jim Shapiro, on drums and Steve Lack on bass.[3] Songwriting was shared between Gordon and Post, though the two seldom collaborated. Rather, each would typically submit a complete song to the group and sing the lead vocal on that song, while the other would record backing vocals.

The band had performed a handful of shows when Jim Powers of Minty Fresh Records asked them to sign to the independent label.[4] The band's first release was the single "Seether"/"All Hail Me" on Minty Fresh Records, in 1994.[3] The single was a success and Veruca Salt accompanied Hole on a tour, before releasing their first full-length album, American Thighs. The album, which included "Seether" and "All Hail Me", eventually reached Gold status. In a 2014 retrospective, music magazine Paste listed "Seether" as #10 and "All Hail Me" as #39 on their list of the 50 greatest grunge songs of all time.[1]

After signing to Geffen Records, the band quickly gained in popularity as "Seether" became an MTV hit. A stop-gap EP recorded by Steve Albini, Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt, was released in 1996.[3]

Their second album, Eight Arms to Hold You, was produced by Bob Rock and released in 1997. Lead single "Volcano Girls" gained exposure as the opening theme to the teen comedy film Jawbreaker. Veruca Salt performed another single, "Shutterbug", on Saturday Night Live; however, instead of the featured musical group performing two songs as had been tradition, the musical performances were split between Sting and Veruca Salt. Shapiro left the band soon after the release of Eight Arms, due to unease with having to learn how to play drums - an instrument he had only started playing when asked to join the band - while under public scrutiny.[5] Shapiro was replaced by Stacy Jones (of Letters to Cleo and American Hi-Fi).[3] Jones toured with the band on the Eight Arms tour and appeared in the music videos for "Volcano Girls" and "Shutterbug", but would eventually leave the band in 1998 along with Gordon.[6]

In 1996, Veruca Salt appeared as Pavement's replacement band in their video "Painted Soldiers".

In 1997, they opened for the band Bush in a North American tour.[7]

1998–2005: Gordon's departure, reformation and Resolver

In 1998, Gordon left the band to pursue a solo career (her first album, Tonight and the Rest of My Life, was released in 2000 and featured drumming by Stacy Jones, who had also left Veruca Salt and was in a relationship with Gordon[8]). The undisclosed dispute between Gordon and Post has been described as "one of the greatest rock soap operas since Fleetwood Mac or Hüsker Dü."[9]

Post, as the only remaining band member, contributed the song "Somebody" to the Depeche Mode tribute album For The Masses before recruiting a new lineup. Guitarist Stephen Fitzpatrick joined and went on to become one of Post's principal songwriting partners during the next decade. Jimmy Madla and Suzanne Sokol joined on drums and bass guitar respectively. Most of the band's record label support had been fired during the Universal/PolyGram merger, so Post left Geffen Records, formed her own Velveteen Records label, and signed a distribution deal with Beyond Records. The reformed band released the album Resolver, which spawned both a single and video for "Born Entertainer," in May 2000.[10]

Sokol left the band at the end of 2000 and was replaced by Post's friend Gina Crosley. The band continued to tour through the summer of 2001 in the UK. Post and Crosley also attempted to form a supergroup with Courtney Love of Hole and others but the project soon imploded.[11] This allowed the pair to focus on new material for Veruca Salt which eventually yielded the Officially Dead EP that was primarily distributed during the band's 2003 tour of Australia (followed by a 2005 tour of Australia).

2005–2012: VSIV and hiatus

By 2005, Madla left to enter the restaurant business and Crosley was also dismissed. They were replaced in the studio by Solomon Snyder and Michael Miley respectively. Veruca Salt began 2005 by touring Australia undertaking both headline festival appearances and club shows. This session resulted in the Lords of Sounds and Lesser Things (LOSALT). The band went on tour with Post, Fitzpatrick, drummer Kellii Scott, and bassist Nicole Fiorentino. LOSALT was released independently by the band and included six new songs. The EP's title is an extract from Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. This lineup then recorded a full-length album, IV, and released it in September 2006 (like Resolver before it, this album was released a month apart from a Nina Gordon solo album). The band then went on what would prove to be the last tour of Louise Post's solo incarnation of the band. A single, "So Weird", was released to radio at the end of October 2006 but neither the song nor the album did well commercially.

In 2007, the band recorded a cover of Neil Young's song "Burned" for a 2007 Breast Cancer Benefit album and then went almost entirely dormant. Louise Post took time to have a child while Fiorentino went on to play bass with the Smashing Pumpkins and The Cold and Lovely. Kellii Scott returned to his original band, Failure. On March 14, 2012, the band announced on their official website that they were on an indefinite hiatus.

2013–present: Reunion and Ghost Notes

On March 15, 2013, the band announced the reunion of its original line-up (Nina Gordon, Louise Post, Jim Shapiro, and Steve Lack) with a message on the band's official Facebook page which read, "for now let's just say this: hatchets buried, axes exhumed." The band have also mentioned that they might be open to adding material from their time apart into their sets at some point.[12] The reunion marked the first time Shapiro would play drums since leaving the band in 1997. It had also been years since Lack played bass, with his time out of the band spent on overcoming drug and alcohol abuse and pursuing surfing.[5]

On September 29, 2013, the band announced via social media that they were working on new material. Their first release since reforming came in the form of a release for Record Store Day 2014. The band released a 10-inch vinyl EP, MMXIV, which contains two new songs, "It's Holy" and "The Museum of Broken Relationships" on one side and a twentieth anniversary re-release of "Seether" on the other. The band then toured both the USA and a nine date sold out tour of Australia.

On May 19, 2015, the band announced the release of their fifth album, Ghost Notes. The album, released on July 10, 2015, is the first to feature the band's original lineup since 1997's Eight Arms to Hold You.[13]

Louise Post and Nina Gordon appeared on Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast on August 7, 2015 and revealed that Veruca Salt were approached to host a FOX comedy variety show in the 1990s.

In March 2017, the band reunited with Nicole Fiorentino for a one-off performance at a Planned Parenthood charity event. Patty Schemel, formerly of Hole, filled in on drums.[14]

The band returned to Australia in February 2018 for a series of headline shows, as well as being part of the mini-festival A Day on the Green alongside The Fauves, Tumbleweed, The Lemonheads, Spiderbait and The Living End.

Veruca Salt teamed up with Rock the Vote for the 2018 American election releasing a track titled Low Grade Fever from the Ghost Notes recording sessions.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Veruca Salt among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[15]

Band members
  • Louise Post – guitar, vocals (1992–2012, 2013–present)
  • Nina Gordon – guitar, vocals (1992–1998, 2013–present)
  • Steve Lack – bass guitar (1992–1998, 2013–present)
  • Jim Shapiro – drums (1992–1997, 2013–present)

Former members

  • Stacy Jones – drums (1997–1998)
  • Stephen Fitzpatrick – guitar (1999–2012)
  • Jimmy Madla – drums (1999–2005)
  • Suzanne Sokol – bass guitar, backing vocals (1999–2000)
  • Gina Crosley – bass guitar, backing vocals (2000–2001)
  • Kellii Scott – drums (2005–2012)
  • Nicole Fiorentino – bass guitar, backing vocals (2006–2008)

Touring members

  • Bill Brabec - bass guitar (1997-1998)
  • Eva Gardner – bass guitar (2005)
  • Toby Lang – drums guitar (2005)

Studio members

  • Mareea Paterson – bass guitar (2003, 2005)
  • Solomon Snyder – bass guitar (2004)
  • Michael Miley – drums (2004–2005)

Timeline

Discography

Studio albums
YearAlbum TitleLabel
1994 American Thighs Minty Fresh

DGC/Minty Fresh (re-release)

1997 Eight Arms to Hold You Outpost/Geffen
2000 Resolver Beyond and on MGM Records (Aus)
2006 IV Sympathy For The Record Industry (US) and on Shock Records (AUS)
2015 Ghost Notes El Camino and on Warner Bros Music (AUS)

Extended plays
YearEP TitleLabel
1996 Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt DGC/Minty Fresh
2003 Officially Dead Embryo Records
2005 Lords of Sounds and Lesser Things Velveteen
2014 MMXIV Minty Fresh

Singles
YearSingle TitleAlbum taken from
1994 "Seether" / "All Hail Me" American Thighs
1995 "Number One Blind"
"Victrola"
1997 "Volcano Girls" Eight Arms to Hold You
"Shutterbug"
"Benjamin"
"The Morning Sad" (Promo Only)
"Straight" (Promo Only)
2000 "Born Entertainer" Resolver
"Only You Know" (Promo Only)
2003 "Born Entertainer" (Australian Release)
"Officially Dead" (Australian tour EP)
"Yeah Man" (Australian Promo)
2006 "So Weird" IV
2014 "The Museum of Broken Relationships" / "It's Holy" MMXIV
2015 "Laughing in the Sugar Bowl" Ghost Notes

Chart performance
Album US UK[16][17] AUS[18]
American Thighs 69 47 26
Eight Arms To Hold You 55 95 69
Resolver 171 DNC DNC
IV DNC DNC DNC
Ghost Notes 159 DNC DNC
Single US Mod US Main UK[16][17][19] AUS[18] AUS Triple J
Hottest 100		 AUS Triple J
Net 50
"Seether" 8 34 61 6
"Number One Blind" 20 68 106
"Victrola" 88
"Volcano Girls" 8 9 56 47
"Shutterbug" 38 114
"Benjamin" 75
"Straight" 39
"Born Entertainer" 192 1
"Yeah Man" 13
"Officially Dead" 5
"Laughing in the Sugar Bowl"
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gollark: It's a polynomial in a finite field, for purposes.
gollark: Shamir's secret sharing <@336962240848855040>.
gollark: Consider Desmos.
gollark: Do you know what graphs of log(x) look like? It's that but translated left a bit.

See also
  • List of alternative music artists

References
  1. "The 50 Best Grunge Songs". Paste. August 4, 2014. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  2. "Veruca Salt (Official)". Facebook. March 21, 2013. Retrieved March 21, 2013.
  3. Colin Larkin, ed. (1997). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Concise ed.). Virgin Books. p. 1218. ISBN 1-85227-745-9.
  4. "YouTube". YouTubem. Archived from the original on December 16, 2013.
  5. Caro, Mark (July 3, 2014). "Veruca Salt reunites years after explosive breakup". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
  6. Kaufman, Gil (July 30, 1998). "Ex-Veruca Salt Leaders Branch Out with New LPs". MTV. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  7. "Veruca Salt North American Tour with Bush Schedule". Chrispy.net. 1997-07-29. Archived from the original on 2017-07-01. Retrieved 2015-07-12.
  8. Woodlief, Mark (June 30, 2000). "Nina Gordon Enjoys Life After Veruca Salt". MTV. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  9. Stephen Thomas Erlewine (2000-05-16). "Resolver – Veruca Salt | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 2015-07-12.
  10. Hay, Carla (22 Apr 2000). "Veruca Salt Returns On Velveteen/Beyond". Billboard. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
  11. Saidman, Sorelle. "Courtney's Bandmates Bail". Rollingstone.com. Retrieved 2015-07-12.
  12. Culpan, Troy. "Louise Post of Veruca Salt". maytherockbewithyou.com. May The Rock Be With You. Retrieved 2014-09-23.
  13. Geslani, Michelle (2015-05-19). "Veruca Salt announces reunion album, Ghost Notes, premieres "Laughing in the Sugar Bowl"". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
  14. "Veruca Salt (Nina & Louise,Patty Schemel & Nicole Fiorentino) Volcano Girls ( El Rey , L.A 3/4/17)". YouTube.
  15. Rosen, Jody (25 June 2019). "Here Are Hundreds More Artists Whose Tapes Were Destroyed in the UMG Fire". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  16. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 585. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  17. "Official Charts > Veruca Salt". The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved 2015-10-09.
  18. Australian (ARIA Chart) peaks:
  19. "Chart Log UK 1994–2010 > V – Vybe". Dipl.-Bibl.(FH) Tobias Zywietz. Archived from the original on 2015-10-16. Retrieved 2015-10-09.
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