THE MAKING OF Mic City Sons By Heatmiser - FEATURING Neil Gust, Tony Lash and Sam Coomes

Intro:

Dan Nordheim: You’re listening to Life of the Record. Classic albums, told by the people who made them. My name is Dan Nordheim.

Heatmiser formed in Portland, Oregon in 1992 by Elliott Smith, Neil Gust, Tony Lash and Brandt Peterson. They signed to Frontier Records and released their debut album, Dead Air, in 1993. Their second album, Cop and Speeder, was released in 1994 with Brandt Peterson leaving the band shortly after. Sam Coomes filled in on bass as they signed to Virgin Records and began building their own studio in a house in Portland. Around this same time, Elliott Smith released two albums and was starting to have some success as a solo artist. Heatmiser’s third and final album, Mic City Sons, was released in 1996.

In this episode, for the 25th anniversary, Neil Gust, Tony Lash and Sam Coomes look back on how Mic City Sons came together. This is the making of Mic City Sons. 

Neil Gust: Hi, this is Neil, I was in Heatmiser. What I didn't understand was that artists have a process. And I just thought that if it didn't come out sounding great, then you were shitty at it, which is not how it works. Like, you have to start with something and develop it. And what I saw Elliott do with the solo stuff, since it was separate from the band, and I could see it improve, was I watched an artist develop. I realized, if I'm going to improve as a songwriter, I have to develop my work. But I didn't know how and I felt like I was trying to catch up to his process. And because not only did his process sound really good, it was successful, it connected with other people. And so suddenly, he got on a roll. And when you get on a roll, like, if you're outside the roll, it's just, I was trying to catch up to that roll. And feeling like, I didn't know how to do it. What I wish I could do is go back and explain to my 20-year-old self, you just have to show up and do your work. It's gonna sound bad for months, it doesn't matter. It's not what it's about, you just have to show up and do your work. 

The way Heatmiser started was in college with me and Elliott. We bonded straightaway over music and I think we started playing together and recording stuff almost immediately. What we bonded over was that we'd both done recording in high school and we both really loved Elvis Costello. And then we ended up discovering music at the same time, like the Pixies and Fugazi. We both just got CD players. It changed our record buying habits and we ended up going and getting a lot of old stuff. And at the time I remember there were these Ryko reissues of David Bowie that were incredible. They were just gold mines of records that it seems ridiculous now with streaming because you can just listen to anything but at the time, I found records that I'd never heard before, in my 20s like Hunky Dory and Funhouse by the Stooges and Marquee Moon, and Cabaret Voltaire and Can’s Tago Mago, it all made us super excited about the idea that you could mix all this stuff up. But Fugazi and the Pixies were just completely the first thing in our faces. And when we moved to Portland, after graduating from college, so it's the end of the spring of 1991, Elliott had bought a Marshall half stack with his like, student loan money. I mean, that pretty much sets up what you sound like. And so I was saving up, it took about a year and a half to save up and buy another Marshall half stack. And once we had those that pretty much sets up that you are a loud fucking rock band. They were 100 watt Marshall half stacks, they're as loud as you can get. And we were super into it. And that's how we made Dead Air. But then, that was never like everything that we wanted to do, we still had all these other interests and things like the Beatles (laughs), the Rolling Stones, but we were also in the Pacific Northwest at the very second, it all blew up, when grunge just went supernova. And that was the summer that Nevermind came out. When we put out Dead Air, we just immediately wanted to do something else. It just got sort of a mixed reaction. And it's also really hard to go out on tour and deliver that kind of energy all the time that has to be built into your personality and wasn't built into ours. Elliott's reaction was just to, you know, go back to his 4-track and record songs quietly. And my reaction to it was to buy a tremolo pedal and stop using the half stack. That's what started us changing up the sound. We loved bands that changed a lot and we wanted to be a band like that. 

Tony Lash: I'm Tony lash, I was the drummer in Heatmiser and also our on again off again in-house engineer and producer. I had known Elliott for so long and we'd worked on all these various projects in like different styles and idioms and so it just seemed like a perfectly natural side project for Elliott to be doing, knowing him as long as I had and yeah, just knowing that he was fluid in a lot of styles beyond just the muscley rock that Heatmiser was doing, especially around our first record. He recorded Roman Candle between when we did Dead Air and Cop and Speeder. I remember, it was actually on our tour for Cop and Speeder, where we'd been out for a few days, or maybe a week or two, and he was already just so disenchanted with the hard rock Heatmiser. And he wanted to change it up the day before a show. And I was, I guess, feeling inflexible about it, I felt insecure about suddenly, you know, getting brushes and playing a show like that when I was used to playing the way that I had been for a couple years at that point, and playing the songs like that. And so I felt kind of ambushed and my hesitancy to kind of just be on board for him was, he got really frustrated by that immediately. I never set out to be a drummer, but I had more fun playing rock drums, you know, than playing quiet drums. Like it's just more fun for my body. But you know, recording is different. And by the time we were actually recording Mic City Sons, I don't remember feeling like, “Oh, I want to be playing these drums way more rocking than I am.” It's like, “What serves the song?” I think the music certainly got way better when we quieted things down, you know, and left room for it to still be rocking sometimes, but to be much quieter others.

Neil Gust: Elliott's solo stuff was taking off in a way that I think was a surprise to everybody, including Elliott. Not because we didn't think it was great. It's just, it really connected with people so much more than I mean, anything, anybody we knew who was playing music, much less just our band. And then at the same time, Tony was pursuing his own thing as a producer. Also, it was a transition time between Brandt playing bass for Heatmiser and Sam coming in. And Sam kept saying he wasn't he wasn't the bass player, he was just helping us he was just filling in. And we went through the motions of trying to find another bass player. But secretly, we all knew Sam was the bass player. 

Sam Coomes: This is Sam Coomes and amongst other things, I was bassist in Heatmiser on the Mic City Sons record. We were all just friends and you know, just playing in bands here. And they said, “Brandt's out of the band, we got a tour booked, do you want to come out on tour?” And I said, “Yeah, of course I do. That sounds fun. But you know, I have my own band, I got my own thing going.” You know, “I'm not going to be the Heatmiser bass player.” Nowadays I realized like, well, now of course, you have to be in at least two bands, if not more just to like, just to keep working. But in those days, I thought, “My bands, you know, it's going to take off and I'm going to be busy, I won't be able to do this.” I was always just sort of helping them out in my mind, although they never found anybody else and I ended up doing all the rest of the tours and working on that album. I remember being, it might have been even just the first tour that I did with them, or one of the earlier tours before Mic City Sons. I just remembered, you know, Heatmiser in my head, they were friends of mine, we played gigs, I'd seen them numerous times. And I thought they were kind of like a hard rock band. They sang loud, like yelling almost, and, you know, I liked it. I thought that was awesome. And when we played on tour, you know, we played those songs that way, the older songs and it was a lot of fun. But I remember in a house or hotel or someplace on on tour, and Elliott had brought his acoustic guitar out and he just like sat down and started playing this really complicated finger picking piece, you know, that might have had singing or not, I don't know, but I just was like, “Oh, this this guy is like a lot more than just like loud guitars and shouting.” But I didn't actually know that about him from when I first knew him. So that was kind of the first point that I saw that he was an advanced and talented musician and I thought that was quite interesting. And later he went on to go more in that direction and leave the rock and roll stuff behind. =

Tony Lash: I know that, you know, especially in retrospect like Elliott had a lot of ambivalence about signing a deal with Heatmiser because, you know, he had done his first two records and I think, wanted to have more, just more creative control over how his songs came out. But yeah, I mean, I remember us being on tour. I think it was the first tour we did with Sam and we were in Salt Lake City. And then we had like a band meeting shortly after that, where it really felt like, I can't remember all the details this long time ago now, but I remember saying to Elliott, like, “We don't have to keep doing this if you don't want.” You know, basically like, giving him an out because there was this feeling, and he was really unhappy. But for reasons I can only speculate about, he decided to go ahead with it. 

Neil Gust: So we signed this deal with Virgin and it was the culmination of years of work. And it was something that we always said that we wanted to do. But I remember the day we signed, that it didn't feel celebratory. It felt like Elliott was really conflicted, signing that deal. I think because business wise, it wasn't the best decision for him to do that, because it ended up connecting Frontier Records to his solo stuff. And after Heatmiser was over and Elliott went on to DreamWorks, Frontier got a cut. And it just, it wasn't fair. I think he saw the possibility of that happening and it gave him a lot of pause before signing a major label contract with Heatmiser. But he did it, because that's what we'd set out to do. And when the moment arrived, we kept going. But it was a weird day, something that I thought was going to be the greatest step we'd taken as a band. And it didn't feel like it. 

Sam Coomes: At that time, those guys had signed a contract with a record label and gotten an advance. And they were able to leave their jobs, they had money and work on this record, they set up the studio in this house. But I never signed the contract and I did not want to sign the contract because I didn't want to have trouble with my other band, which was my main focus and is still an active band. So you know, I didn't want to mess up Quasi by signing some contract. Without even looking at the contract, you always hear stories about people who like, “Oh, no, like, I can't, I don't own my songs.” (laughs). So I didn't get the advance, I was still working my job. 

Tony Lash: We spent a long time negotiating with Virgin because we really wanted to have complete creative control. They were not totally open to that at first, but I think they were, I mean, again, looking back, were really motivated to sign Elliott, maybe more than the band, and eventually gave us complete control over how we recorded it, the final version of the album, the mixes, everything like it was not something that was easy to negotiate with a major label at that time. 

Neil Gust: We wanted to build our own studio. And personally, I just thought that was such a cool idea because we watched the Beastie Boys do it for Check Your Head. And I just thought that was the coolest thing, that they built out this thing and then just taught themselves how to do all this stuff. And I really wanted to learn all that. But Tony and Elliott were pretty well educated about the recording process, but I wasn't. So that was really exciting to me. We also just wanted time to develop our songs in the studio more than we had. Usually, we only had like a day or two to blast through it. And obviously, with the major label budget, we wanted to spend the money in a way that allowed us to make just the coolest record we could possibly make. 

Sam Coomes: It's really common for bands to get an advance and just spend it all in recording equipment and record themselves or it was in the 90s. I don't know if people get advances anymore (laughs). But you know, that's a common way to do it. And it's smart, really, because then you have something material to bring out of the process rather than just giving it all to a studio.

Neil Gust: At the time, I remember thinking if we made a great record, it will just make things easier for us. But the funny thing was, is that after we finished that record, we just kind of abandoned it and it didn't make anything easier at all. It was the end of something, it turned out to be the end of something. It wasn't clear it was going to be the end until after we were done. And then it was but I think there's like a feel in that record, that It's dawning on us that it's the end of the band. 

That's how it kind of started but then we started buying gear you know renting this house and putting in soundproofing and it was walking distance from where I lived in Portland. And then Elliott went on tour and Tony started producing another band and I was the only person using the studio (laughs). And I would walk over there and read the manuals to how to work the compressor and stuff, Tony would give me basic settings that I could put in and then I would just work on my songs. But nobody was around, and I'd end up like playing solitaire on the computer for a while and then go home, and then come back the next day and mess around a little and play solitaire, again. It was really weird. That went on for a while, until we finally got together. I mean, you set up a studio, there's a lot to work out. 

Sam Coomes: I mean, that was the hard path, I think. And it led to a lot of tension in the band, because you could have gone into a studio with a producer and a lot of things would have been just taken care of, rather than having to start from scratch. And it seemed like maybe that led to some conflicts in recording philosophy and so forth. But I think it was the best way to do it. 

Neil Gust: There was also just a weird vibe. I think Elliott went in expecting to get friction about the way he wanted to do things. And Tony came in expecting to get friction about the way he wanted to approach things. And so there was fucking friction.

Tony Lash: The hard thing was that the communication was poor. And like he wouldn't necessarily talk about what was frustrating him, it would just come out. My feeling was, I wouldn't really know it was coming until I was in the middle of him being really frustrated, and there being some kind of conflict. Which was hard to deal with and, you know, he was learning how to be the kind of songwriter he wanted to be and how his songs came out. And I was learning how to be the kind of producer I wanted to be.

Neil Gust: The differences I remember are that I think Elliott didn't mind if things didn't sound super professional. And Tony took real pride in his experience, and all the things that he'd learned and wanted things to sound as good as he could make them. They just came at it from different perspectives, Elliott was, “I’m a songwriter and I just want it to feel like something.” And music that's recorded, that's not well produced, or that's recorded on 4-track, or that's recorded without using the finest equipment that you can get your hands on, it still feels like something. And Tony didn't disagree with that. His interest and what he wanted to do is try to make it sound as cool as he could using his tools. So I thought they both sounded great. I was like, “I got no dog in this fight.”

Sam Coomes: I wasn't there all the time, I would come after work. So I missed a lot of the stuff. I would sometimes show up and, “Where's Tony?” “Oh he's gone” (laughs). I remember having to go to like a cafe down the street and be like, “Tony, come on back, it's okay.” And so I mean, Tony can speak to that more than me you know, but I think what was happening was, Elliott had some strong ideas about what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. And when a band member is also producing, it's a double whammy, because you critique each other's playing each other's parts, you're trying to make something good, you're sort of haggling about that and then you're also haggling about this whole other element that's only semi-related, the way that the sounds are being captured, and so forth. When it's an outside producer, if you get into arguments with them, it's fine, it doesn't break the band up (laughs). But when the producer is, you know, the drummer, it makes for problems. 

Tony Lash: And we had historically had a lot of tension between the two of us in terms of how I approached recording versus what he wanted, but I think by that point, it was hard for him to see how I was changing. Because, you know, in the 80s, as I was really first getting into recording and production, I was really into this very highly produced 80s stuff and he was way more into raw recordings. And so there was this push and pull from the beginning. And so I think that he was always on very high alert for feeling like I was trying to be too perfectionistic or too polished about things. Not having enough rawness or spontaneity, which I think was a fair argument for a while, but then I was really changing right around this time. You know, like, if you hear the difference between Dead Air and Cop and Speeder, you know, that was a year apart. It's much more organic and raw and breathes a lot more. And then after that, I started doing some records like I did the first Dandy Warhols and I was just getting way more experimental with how I was doing things. So yeah, I guess there was this feeling like, “Hey, I am changing over here and I'm open to other ideas.” But the way he would react in the moment would be so frustrating, because it would happen without a conversation, that I felt like my hands were tied a little bit. 

Neil Gust: The only other thing that I remember them disagreeing about was just the sound of cymbals. Because I think that high end is what made Elliott feel like it was too sort of polished, and too sparkly. He just didn't want there to be so much sizzle. 

Tony Lash: And you know, I think I've said it before in other interviews, but sort of guys in their 20s aren't typically the best adult communicators all the time, you know, so there was just that whole dynamic. You know, it wasn't just Elliott. 

Neil Gust: Eventually, we also realized that we needed help, just because the vibe could get unproductive, pretty quick. Tony was connected with Rob Schnapf, who at the time was in a producing partnership with Tom Rothrock. And those guys really wanted to work with Elliott. And we went back to Virgin and said, “Can we have more money to get these guys to help us?” and they were like, “Okay.”

Tony Lash: It wasn't actually that hard for me to want to bring Rob and Tom in. Because we have been working on our own for a while at that point. I can't remember exactly how long. But it was clear that we kept running into these impasses. And we had done quite a bit of recording on our own like, several of the songs on the album we'd started on our own without their help. But I think I felt like, I mean, I was getting so frustrated with the dynamic, that it felt like kind of a relief to bring them in. I was really open to it. 

Neil Gust: And that's when it broke the logjam and we started to get stuff that we ended up using on the record. 

“Get Lucky”

Tony Lash: “Get Lucky” is one of the ones we did from the ground up with Rob and Tom. I don't think we had ever played that song live so this is one of the ones we created in the studio. And I remember, when we're doing the drum track, there was some frustration, I wasn't quite getting the feel that Elliott wanted. And when we did “Get Lucky,” I just remember being on the other side of all these foam blocks, trying to play the song. And I could feel that Elliott was not liking what I was doing, it wasn't quite right, or there was some frustration. But Rob and Tom are doing a good job of filtering that through to their comments, because I don't remember hearing a lot directly from Elliott as I was trying to get that drum track. So it was a good example about how having Rob and Tom there enabled us to get the album done at all. 

Neil Gust: I loved “Get Lucky,” I loved it when Elliott would write a rock song. And there is this thing that he wanted to do that I thought was so weird and cool. Where we would go in the background, (sings backing vocal part) “Ohhhhhhhh,” you know, we had to go down and then bend back up. And it took a while to get it. But that to me was I just thought it was really creative. 

Tony Lash: I remember that the idea came from “I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles. Maybe you've heard it (laughs). Just that kind of like yelling, background vocal, I think. I don't know who had the idea but I think that was the inspiration for it. 

Neil Gust: The other thing is that Aaron Day, who was in this band called Sone, in Portland, came by the studio while we were working on it. And Elliott just gave him the mic to talk in the song. And so that's what he did. One of my favorite little bits that happened in that is Tom Rothrock was editing Aaron's vocal take and there was this one part where he just cut his voice. So it goes like, “bleh,” and it cuts. That record is full of details like that where it intentionally doesn't make any sense and it's in there. 

Sam Coomes: Now see, that's the one that Elliott played on. I tried, you know, I tried a couple things on it. I actually didn't love the song. So that probably contributed, you know, I was like, “I don't really like the song and I'm not really feeling it.” And Elliott was like, “I'll just play it,” and I said, “Great. (laughs) You do it.” Now, I haven't listened to that record in a long time. I should probably give it a spin. Now I'm sure I would probably appreciate it more. To me, that was the weakest song of that batch of songs. And I was cranky and just didn't even play on that song. I mean, to me, it's got a nice rhythmic feel, I didn't like the concept like just suddenly shouting as a chorus, “Get lucky!” You know, it sounded very trite and contrived. Like trying to have a hit and having some silly catchphrase that didn't make any sense to me where all the other songs are pretty measured and accomplished lyrically, I think. Musically, I think “Get Lucky” is great. It's got a nice groove and no problem with it. Again, I was cranky, and I probably didn't give it proper attention. 

Tony Lash: I remember I was not a giant fan of that song. For whatever reason, it felt like it had a bit of a cocky swagger to it that I felt somehow was not organic to us. And so I was not really a huge fan of it for a long time. I remember walking by this club called EJ’s at some point, I think after we had broken up, and Elliott was playing a solo show, and I heard him playing that song, just acoustic. And I was like, “Okay, the song makes a lot more sense to me now, like this.” And then, many years later, when my son was maybe eight or nine years old, and he started to listen to Heatmiser, he really liked that song. And somehow his enjoyment of it helped cast it in a new light for me, and I like it a lot more now than I ever did back then.

“Plainclothes Man”

Neil Gust: So much was changing with the speed in which Elliott’s success was propagating. And it was really clear that it was connecting so much more deeply than what the band was doing, that it made perfect sense that that's what he would want to do. And those records are fucking great. You know, they sound incredible. I love his solo records. I didn't want him to give that up to be in our band. But I didn't want to give up my band. And so we were just trying to figure it out. Like, can these both exist at the same time? And I think we thought it could but a lot of people didn't want it. Because it made it a lot harder to put Elliott through a music business machine.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): So tell me about the last year of your life.

Elliott Smith: Tell you about the last year of my life? Well, I don't know.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): What's been going on with, I heard that Heatmiser got signed to Virgin or something?

Elliott Smith: Yeah.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): Is that still a happening thing? 

Elliott Smith: Well, now, the record that we made is coming out on Caroline.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): When did you make that? 

Elliott Smith: Back in November.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): Did you record it at their white room or something?

Elliott Smith: No, we recorded at a house that we rented.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): Tony do most of the work on it? 

Elliott Smith: No, these guys from Bong Load, you know, the label Bong Load? Yeah. So they came up and helped us. It was kind of all of us doing the production work, though.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): How many of your songs ended up on there?

Elliott Smith: I think about half of it. 

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): Were any of those songs that were on any of your other releases? 

Elliott Smith: No, they were, almost all of them were going to be songs that were going to be on my next solo record, but…

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): Are any of them mellow? 

Elliott Smith: A lot of them are mellow. Yeah, the whole record’s mellower. 

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): For a while, it seemed like your stuff and Heatmiser’s were miles apart. 

Elliott Smith: Well, now it's not so different now.

Shane Kennedy (Interviewer): You think you might incorporate some of your stuff? Because for a while there I thought, he’s gonna bail. 

Elliott Smith: Well, um, it's unclear what's going to happen. But um, yeah, like, stylistically, they're more similar now than they used to be. 

Neil Gust: While his solo stuff started to blow up, I got this feeling from some friends and definitely from people that we knew in the music industry that they just didn't have, they no longer had any use for me. You know that what they wanted was Elliott. And there was a lot of weird stuff that just felt like, are they trying to pry him out of this band? Because it's his band. He wanted to do it. He may have had some internal conflicts about it, but he definitely wanted to make a great Heatmiser record. I mean, it wouldn't sound as good as it does, if you didn't. And it's not like you could tell Elliott what to do (laughs). You know, he was there because he wanted to be but if we would just go out socializing or something, just the feeling was so different. After he became a successful solo artist, because you became invisible if you were with him, or people would sort of try to elbow you out of the way. It was really weird. It was just a pervasive feeling of becoming invisible. 

Tony Lash: “Plainclothes Man” was another song that we started with Rob and Tom. So they were there from the ground up. So most of my memories have to do with the drums and trying to remember if I was around for the overdubs, but I don't think I was or I don't have any strong memories of it. 

Neil Gust: I don't remember much about recording it. Once we found the feel, and once we got it to lay way back, it felt right. 

Sam Coomes: I don't remember specific songs, honestly, they were all recorded in a similar way. Like I said, I would come over after work. So I would work, I was working at Kinko’s copies in downtown Portland. So I would work all day and after work, I would come over to the studio where they had been working all day. Then they would say, you know, “We got a couple songs ready for you.” And I would say, “Alright, let's hear ‘em.” And sometimes they were, I had never heard the song. Sometimes it was just like, they were ready to go and I had never heard it. So I just kind of took a second, cobbled together the first thing I thought of in my head as the bass part and tracked it, you know. Sometimes that's a good way to work for certain types of music, but for that more crafted pop stuff like that, it's not ideal. So there were a couple songs where I was not happy with my bass part, I thought they were pretty mundane. A couple other songs are pretty good, they’re okay. There was, I do remember having a little bit of a meltdown in the studio because the producer or one of the producers, Rob Schnapf, who's still a friend, it didn't cause any lasting problems. But you know, I’d come to the house after work, be kind of tired and be like, “Okay, I'm ready, I'm gonna do this anyway.” And he would sit kind of right in front of me with a notepad and write down every little thing that he thought was a flub, like scrutinizing my playing, as I was tracking and writing it down like, “We're gonna go back and fix that.” And I was like, “I can't play when you're sitting there writing down these flubs, and they're not even flubs they're just, that's just bass playing. And it wasn't a civil discussion. It was more like, “I'm storming out of the room.” And there was a lot of storming out of the room during those sessions, in general anyway, because we are volatile young people (laughs). But eventually, they were like, “Okay, well, we'll be mellow.” And I don't remember if it was that song specifically, but that was happening in the first half of the recording for that. And it was putting me really uptight (laughs). We got that sorted out eventually. 

Neil Gust: One of the things that we did when we signed to a major label was we bought new guitars. And Elliott had a Rickenbacker. And I remember Elliott using his Rickenbacker on “Plainclothes Man,” and that's what gives it that jangle. 

Sam Coomes: I do remember that song specifically, we filmed a video for it in like a grocery store, outside of LA. I used like a Beatle bass on that video, which I did not use, of course on the recording. But now in my head, I think like, “That's the song with the Beatle bass. 

Tony Lash: When we flew down to LA to do the video, I was already pretty resigned to leaving the band at that point, like my frustration level had just gotten so high and my producing career was starting to take off. And it just felt like I didn't need the tension anymore. So that trip was, it was difficult. I liked the process of doing the video. That was fun. And, you know, I remember driving around with Elliott, I think he was, I don't know if it was quite finished. But he was just finishing up Either/Or, and I remember him playing it for me in the car. But I was just hiding so much frustration, just trying to get through the process of the video that I don't remember much of my impression of that album. And I still haven't really gone back to it because it's just kind of married to this feeling of tension for me.

Neil Gust: I think the biggest difference between Elliott’s solo stuff and the band stuff is the groove. The groove in Heatmiser is much more forward than what I heard on Elliott's solo records. But they’re still his songs. My favorite part about that song is the back end when it picks up and everything is there. I love the back end of that song. 

And let me just say there's no denying that as a songwriter, Elliott got on a roll. And he was on that roll with Mic City Sons. Those are great songs. But we were working on them together. But I just started to feel like my contribution just didn't matter that I just wasn't ever going to be as good as him. And so I lost my confidence. I heard some of the tracks that we never put on the record and I could hear just how different, because they were from more the beginning of the sessions, and I sound a lot more confident in those songs than in the stuff that ended up on the record. By the time I was doing vocals on that record, I had no confidence. And rock music is just all confidence, you have to have a, you know, a delusional amount of confidence to do it. 

“Low Flying Jets”

Tony Lash: Yeah, as far as “Low Flying Jets” goes, we had played the song before we started recording. So I think the way the song was laid out was pretty established. Usually, there would be some kind of quick conversation with Rob and Tom about how the drums should sound, but I liked what they were doing so I didn't get too involved with that. And like I said earlier, at that point, you know, after we had had those months of recording without them where it was so frustrating. I just deeply wanted things to go smoothly. So I really tried to do whatever I could to just have it go smoothly. And I don't remember any hiccups on that song. I imagined that when we were doing the basic, Neil would have been playing an electric for me to play along with but yeah, definitely the way the acoustics are, makes the song sound a lot cooler than if it were just electric guitars. 

Sam Coomes: That song, yeah, it's a nice one, I think that it's hard to remember if that was one of the ones that we had already been playing for a while. Neil is a very distinctive rhythm guitar player and his songs are very fun to play live. They have like a groove and a bounce to them. So I always associate his songs, I remember playing them live more than tracking them for sure. 

Neil Gust: Every once in a while, we would come up with a part. I’d show Elliott something or he would show me something, and we'd become obsessed with it. And I showed him the six chords in the chorus and he loved that. And so I knew I needed to keep that part and ditch the rest of the song that I was working on and I just built the song around that. I wanted Elliott to love my songs so bad and I would do anything to write something that he would respond to. And I learned so much from his songs, which were fucking hard to play. I learned so much about songwriting from him, because he just wrote so many songs so fast, and got better so fast. But I always felt like I was way more into things rocking, like the groove of something. And that doesn't necessarily mean a Marshall half stack. You know, I felt like that was something that I could do that he couldn't, or that he just didn't care about. He probably could have done it if he cared about it, but I don't think he did. So I felt like I'm gonna write groovy songs, that also are something that he would respond to, which meant that I had to try to absorb his sort of melodic sensibility, which is not easy to do. He was really sophisticated, melodically. 

Tony Lash: Neil had written a lot of good songs before Mic City Sons, but his songwriting just got so much better. And I haven't talked too much about his process of getting to that point. But yeah, his songs are really strong. I think there have been a lot of people over the years that have made comments about, you know, how much better Eliott's songs were or, you know, I've seen comments about, “Oh, you know, this would be a great album, if you took that other guy's songs off.” And I don't think that's true at any point in our career, but especially on Mic City Sons, Neil songs completely stand up to Elliott's and provide a really different flavor, a different feel that I think helps, you know, the combination of the two of them makes the record way stronger than it could have been if it were just one or the other. 

Sam Coomes: Those guys were the songwriters and singers, Elliott and Neil and it's not only just their voices, their singing, and their songwriting style, it was to me the rhythmic feel of that band, especially on the more rocking songs, is just really fun. They have like a push and pull kind of back and forth rhythmic thing going, you know, when they're at their best with their guitar, to me, it's like it was was the hallmark of the band, although it's a little bit less apparent on the more crafted songs on Mic City Sons. But the dynamic between those two was was interesting, not just, you know, multi levels of dynamic and interplay between those two. 

Neil Gust: The subject matter of the song is about the feel of being in that band, and losing confidence, and just feeling isolated, and sort of stuck in a weird dream like purgatory waiting for everyone to come back and work. Just trying to cut through the noise of everything else going on, outside of us making that record, but a lot of what I was writing about wasn't obvious to me at the time, but when I listened to it recently, I was like, “Oh, this is about our friendship breaking up.” You know, like, people sing about relationships breaking up with lovers. But friendships, it's different. And it really wasn't clear at the time that that's what was happening. 

Elliott's part that he ended up coming up with was just this sort of like, buzzy, noisy, distorted thing that kind of starts to take over and then static out. The idea that like there are all these instruments and a jet that just start to buzz and swallows up all the, takes up all the air. That part of the song is just supposed to get really dense. I wasn't saying to Elliott, “You can't hear me.” But I was saying, “I'm getting drowned out by all this noise.”

“Rest My Head Against The Wall”

Neil Gust: My artistic breakthrough in Heatmiser was on Cop and Speeder with a song called, “Why Did I Decide to Stay?” And that was a much mellower song. I just liked that one better than anything I'd written previously and so I just started trying to write more stuff like it. I remember working on “Rest My Head Against The Wall.” And that was really great. It was really fun. Elliott doesn't play on “Rest My Head Against The Wall.” It was a demo that worked out and the slide was an acoustic guitar miced with that Manley through Tony's AC30. And Sam is playing keyboards.

Sam Coomes: That one was kind of a curveball, I think from what I had always thought Heatmiser was about. And to a certain extent, the entire album is, but that song especially, like a ballad, and you know, I didn't associate Neil with that style of music at that time. Yeah, I just remember, I played a keyboard on it. And I was like, I'm still a little not really sold on the keyboard. It was like a Rhodes, you know, panned out stereo, which to me, I associate that with, like soft rock and all kinds of stuff that I don't like. But it seemed to work at the time. And at that time, it seemed a little bit subversive because Heatmiser had been this aggressive electric guitar band. And now we're doing this like Stevie Nicks shit (laughs) that just like I don't know, but you know, went along with it. I think it turned out really well.

Tony Lash: I remember that being one of the ones where they recorded first before I did the drums, I came in and overdubbed the drums. I had this toy drum set that I bought, and use the bass drum from that as a little tiny, like 12-inch kick drum. And really the trick on that is, Neil didn't do it to a click so it's kind of like learning the song and learning where the tempo ebbs and flows, and trying to make it feel organic. By that point, Neil had really learned how to work the studio well enough. I don't know how much he and Elliott would do stuff together when I wasn't around. But yeah, he knew how to work things well enough to just set up and start recording. And then he called me up to come play drums on it. And as far as the mix goes, he just wasn't happy with the mix that they got down at Rob and Tom’s studio in Arcata. And so after the bulk of the album was mixed, I did that mix back in our studio. 

Neil Gust: Tony mixed that, sounded great. And it just always was the version we liked the best. 

But to talk about what specifically “Rest My Head Against the Wall” is about, I had a crush. I used to walk downtown in Portland, and listen to music. I did that all the time. And I usually didn't even have a destination downtown, but I liked the walk. I’d walk across the bridge, across the water. And Portland's beautiful to walk around. And so I would walk past this gas station and the owner of the gas station was this guy that I developed a total obsession over. He's a straight guy, you know, I found him really appealing. And so I would walk by, I would make an excuse to walk by that gas station all the time. And it would be really thrilling to see him and then afterwards, I would just feel sort of hopeless because I didn't know how to meet anybody. That's what “Rest My Head Against the Wall” and “Cruel Reminder” are about is walking past that gas station and having this thrilling crush that then I would just crash afterwards because I didn't know how to actually meet anybody. I just didn't feel like I could connect with anyone. My experience back then was you know, I was in the closet until, really until I moved to Portland. So moving to Portland was like a rebirth. The thing is, I was 21. And I had no experience being in a relationship, whereas all my straight friends had girlfriends when they're 14 years old. You know, they'd had some training about what that's like. And it's also something that you're taught when you're straight, but I didn't have any guidance. It's also like, AIDS had killed the generation of gay men, who would have been mentors to people my age, and they were wiped out. So I didn't know other gay people and I wasn't comfortable talking about how little I knew. And so I would just let it come out in songs. And the way it came out was just kind of this constant dissatisfaction (laughs). Which is sort of embarrassing now. Because it's, you know, this little white kid talking about what's bad all the time. But at the time, I was very lonely, and didn't know how to make it better.

“The Fix Is In”

Tony Lash: “The Fix Is In” is definitely another high moment. I mean, it's probably my second favorite Elliott song on the album. Because I did like how, you know, even before Rob and Tom, we sort of managed to get through our tension to do something really cool. Like I remember coming over to play on it, you know, he asked me to come play drums on the song. And I think that Elliott had done most of it. Definitely, you know, the main guitar, the Rhodes and the vocal. And so there was a good convergence of in the drum sounds in my emerging creativity with sound and I felt like I was able to really contribute to the mood of the song.

Neil Gust: That was one of the more complex recordings that we did. It’s really cool. I love that song. 

We put Tony's drums through an amp, and then they eventually come out and the song expands. But there's also just this sort of dark groove, but also kind of detached ghostly thing to it. 

Tony Lash: “The Fix Is In” is the other song where I came in and overdubbed the drums on an existing track. We did several takes just because there are some tempo shifts. And I had to try to fit in with that. But I remember, again, in an experimental mood, using the snare from that toy drum kit that I had, well, both that and my regular snare, like I switch to my regular snare during the choruses. And you know, I remember working really hard to fit in with the mood of it, you know, it's so dreamy and has this really slow, dreamy mood. And at least for me, when I'm trying to play to a song that doesn't have a click, I'm anticipating it a little bit. And I remember finally getting one more I felt like a navigated the tempo changes really well and I went to listen back, and I just felt like it felt a little edgy to me. I felt like I was leaning ahead of the beat a bit as I was just anticipating things. And since we're working on digital, it was easy to just shift things. And I remember this was one of these classic impasses we would get to. I remember just shifting all the drum tracks slightly later so that it seemed to gel and not be so antsy in comparison to the rest of the instruments. And Elliott got so mad. He's like, “It doesn't have to be perfect!” and he stormed out. And I was just, I was so annoyed and confused and frustrated by that. Because it wasn't that I was trying to make it perfect. I mean, this is a good example about how he sort of saw a lot of my choices as being about making everything perfect. For me, I made that change because the feel, I wanted the feel of the drums to work. And I think it was better that way and he must have come around to it because I don't remember how long that particular argument went on, but at some point we came back and then I tried running the drums through my little amp and then really liking how that sounded in the verses and I remember talking to him, like, “Oh, when we mix it, it should shift from the amp sound during the verses and then kind of open up in the B section and in the chorus, use just the regular mic so it kind of gets a little more Hi-Fi, opens up during those when I switched my regular snare.” And he did honor that when they did the mix in Arcata, that was before I got down there. And I think it turned out really well. 

And as far as overdubs go, all I remember is that I did have the idea of trying EBow bass. And Rob and Tom were there, I was like, “we should do EBow bass,” and I don't know if they thought I was serious at first but they did end up trying it. Yeah it’s like, (makes sound) “eeeh ohhhh.” I remember Rob would always kind of make fun of it. Because it is pretty funny. It's a funny sound, but it works.

Sam Coomes: That’s true. Yeah, now that you mentioned it. EBow bass, yeah (laughs). I had played EBow with various instruments. It's designed for guitar but you can even use it on piano if you open the piano up and get a nice drone. And I'd used it on bass. And interestingly, you can even use it on drums, it'll resonate the head of a drum. So I was familiar with the EBow, using it in various ways.

Neil Gust: And then what I play is really just the chords of the song, but I'm on an acoustic guitar going through an amp that just kind of comes in when the song kind of hits the ground. But all the other parts of the song are kind of up in this sort of detached helium balloon, hovering over the ground, and then it comes down.

“Eagle Eye”

Neil Gust: (laughs) This is embarrassing. But “Eagle Eye” was about going to a gay bar and just feeling like I was the only person there who didn't know anybody. What it appeared like to me was that I would go to a gay bar, and everybody else had gay friends, and a big group of gay people who they could have fun with. Eventually, I had gay friends. I don't want to make it sound like I didn't, because I had great gay friends. But going to bars always made me feel isolated. Because I didn't know how to meet people without just completely giving away that I was attracted to someone. I didn't know like, how do you be casual about that? Because for so long, my attraction to men was something I had to, I felt like it had to be hidden. And once it didn't have to be hidden, it just felt so naked and I felt so vulnerable. Just saying hello to someone that if they didn't respond kindly, and with the same interest, I would be crushed (laughs). So and that’s just from being immature, just being in the closet for so long and not having any experience. So “Eagle Eye” is about the thrill of going to the bars, and then the disappointment of not meeting somebody every weekend.

Tony Lash: Boy that was a funny song. At least in terms of the drums. That's another one that I think we had played live once or twice. That was a hard drum part to be really consistent all the way through. And so I kind of wanted to layer it. And I think they might have looped it. It's just, it's kind of a crazy song. 

Neil Gust: One of the bands that I didn't mention that I loved, loved loved was the Feelies. And the way that the guitar players, the two guitar players played in that band, I just thought was the greatest thing and “Eagle Eye” is a straight rip on the Feelies. 

Sam Coomes: I could see how that might have been an inspiration for it. But I think again, a lot of Neil's songs, especially on the earlier records were fast and rhythmic like that. So to me, that was not as much of a changeup. Heatmiser at that time was sort of growing and trying new things. And when I first started playing, I was playing the older songs, which I thought was fun. They were more like driving rhythmic rock songs. And as they started to evolve into more, you know, crafted sort of pop-style songs. That actually was a little, probably a little more in my wheelhouse.

Tony Lash: We played “Eagle Eye,” I don't know if we played it on tour, but I know we played it at least one show. I remember we played a show up at Washington Park in 1995. But I remember being really unhappy because, you know, we had completely changed our sound and a lot of songs felt kind of half baked in terms of how we were playing them live and I just didn't feel confident in what I was doing. And the sound was really bad (laughs). I don't know if that was maybe the last show we played together but it was definitely one of them.

“Cruel Reminder”

Tony Lash: “Cruel Reminder,” I love. That's my favorite, Neil one on the album. It's great. It's just propulsive and great chord changes, melody. I remember there being some kind of tension where Elliott was mad because he thought the lyrics were about him. And I remember Neil saying that they weren't. But I think they could be read that way. That would be a question for Neil.

Neil Gust: That's funny, because it's totally not about him. There are other songs that are directly about him that I wrote that didn't end up on the record. But this one absolutely wasn't about him. It was about my crush at the gas station.

Tony Lash: To me the line, “I keep trying to see from a better position. It's no good.” Like, that's the one that sort of to my ears, sounds like a good about that dynamic. I mean, I did have the sense that the tension was growing between Neil and Elliott. 

That accordion sound that comes in. That was Elliott. I had this old sampler called an Emax. You know that accordion melody part, I mean, that was like, it was a good example of how Elliott could add something really cool to a Neil song. You know, I do think that Neil, I mean certainly his melody writing got way better as the band went along, it was really strong on that album. But he's definitely more like, kind of guitar chord and riff focused. And then, you know, Elliott could come in and add something like that either, you know, maybe Elliott's guitar might be a little more melodic against Neil's chords. Yeah, they complemented each other really well, that way.

Neil Gust: We also brought Sean Crogan in to sing on that. And that was super fun, because Sean is one of the most uninhibited singers I'd heard. And that's what it needed. I'm not an uninhibited singer, you know, but Sean is, he's a force of nature. It was great to have him on there. I think he probably got mixed too quietly in it. But he's the one who's screaming in the back. 

“You Gotta Move”

Neil Gust: We were focused on our band, we were focused on making music. There was no drugs at all in Heatmiser. I mean, we drank but…I was concerned about Elliott's depression. I had been through two really bad periods with him where he would become suicidal. That was a concern. And that, that's one of the reasons why we didn't yell or anything like that, because we didn't want anything to escalate into something where that would trigger, you know, a much worse emotional response. You know, this is the first time I’ve ever said that out loud. But it's true. He had periods where the depression would overtake him. And we would, I would do anything to prevent that. And at the time, I thought I could actually do something to help prevent it, which is not the case. I'm not sure what would trigger it. I remember a period where he was reading, Crime and Punishment. And he got really depressed. And I remember a period, periods when he would break up with his longtime girlfriend. There are two major relationships that I saw. I mean, I saw three major relationships of his, end. And they were long, drawn out, painful processes of breaking up. And I mean, the same thing happened with me and him, essentially, where the band breaking up was like, breaking up with a partner. And those breakups could cause, you know, periods of really intense depression for him, I would try to talk him out of it. And he would just say, “This is something you're never gonna talk me out of.” I mean, it just sounded so crazy to me, you know, I just didn't, I thought that I could talk him out of being depressed. But you know, he needed more help than, his 25-year-old friend. 

He talked about his childhood immediately, when I first met him. I knew all that stuff, like that stuff was, his childhood, the experiences of his childhood were front and center in his mind when I met him. My family experience was completely different than what he described. And I couldn't relate. Most people didn't know how to deal with that.

Tony Lash: I can definitely hear the references to or you know, what could be references to Dallas, and his experiences. But I haven't really read that much into it to be honest. I wish that we would have had more conversations about that stuff. You know, I would have liked to have understood where he was coming from on that level a little bit more.

Neil Gust: One of the things that Elliott and I both really loved was a kind of AM radio nighttime listening experience that I associate with being in a car in the Midwest, late at night, after work, and hearing music on the AM radio. There's just like this expansive but lonely feeling. Anything that kind of has this sort of epic and heart opening feeling but also acknowledges the loneliness that you can feel when things are so open always gets me and that song just nails that.

Tony Lash: So my drums on “You Gotta Move” really reflect Elliott’s style more than mine. Like a couple of the fills I took directly from his demo, like fills it he did in the demo, which I think is good because he did have a looser style on the drums. My style was always pretty meat and potatoes. I maybe felt a little bit insecure about kind of being more improvisational, I kind of liked to have my parts laid out. And my fills are pretty just serviceable, but not super inspired or loose. And you know, Elliott was more into having things be loose and so I think hearing him do some of that on “You Gotta Move,” I just incorporated that into how I played the drums on that song. The thing with him, giving me more direct feedback I wanted to play started during Mic City Sons. He knew how to play drums before that. I don't know how much he was playing drums for that, but he was definitely getting more confident about it at that point. And definitely on songs where he demoed them with the drums, he might have really specific ideas. And you know, on “You Gotta Move,” I think there was that sense of when it does that break after the first chorus, you know that fill kind of comes in at just the last sort of moment that it could without feeling like I was just way too late. So I think that was part of his influence, not only on the fills, but just loosening up the feel a bit.

Sam Coomes: I also on one song played like a little slide guitar, which was fun. I think after I kind of threw my hissy fit at Rob for tripping out on my bass parts. The guys, my friends in the band, decided they wanted to do like, “Oh, let's, let Sam play guitar because he seems kind of bent out of shape.” And so that was really nice to them. And I also liked that little guitar solo that I did on there.

Neil Gust: I just remember, it was one of those really late nights, I think we got a noise complaint.

Tony Lash: It was pretty late at night, the house we were recording in was right up against another house. And you know, they were originally doing it, it was probably a really great sound, but it was through an amp and it was really fucking loud. You know, it must have been at least like one in the morning or something and they were doing all these takes of it (laughs). And the neighbor came over and like banged on the door. And so they thought they'd have to stop and save it for another day. And I thought, “Well, why don't you try that,” Rob and Tom brought a SansAmp, which I don't think I'd ever seen one before. Or maybe I had but they had the SansAmp and I said, “Why don’t you try it through that?” And so it's not as good of a sound, but at least they were able to get it done that night. Because man it was loud.

Sam Coomes: Yeah, we were just recording it with headphones. So it's possible there was a noise complaint. It was just a house set up in a neighborhood. In those days. You know, Portland was not like it is now and you could just well let's rent this house for a month (laughs). It's affordable.

“Pop in G” 

Tony Lash: “Pop in G” is a song that we had worked out and played way before we started working on the album. Like we played it live a few times and I just always thought it was an Elliott song. So I'm just curious as anyone whether it's true that Neil wrote it and Elliott sang it.

Neil Gust: No, it’s Elliott’s. I mean, legally, we wrote all the songs together. But he brought that in and wanted to throw it away. And I absolutely wouldn't let him.

Tony Lash: It's another one that we recorded the bulk of, at least the rhythm track, before Rob and Tom came along. Like I remember setting up and doing it and maybe they ended up redoing the rhythm guitars because they ultimately sound more like the kind of guitar sounds they would get. Be yeah the arrangement and everything was pretty laid out and we at least got a good start on it on our own. Lyrically, this is one that I did, you know, true to form in terms of not paying attention lyrics, like I was very late to the game in starting to read the lyrics as Elliott expressing his frustration with me. In kind of my studio, what he saw as my studio perfectionism, and yeah, it kind of stung. Although, I'm not an unempathetic to how I could be frustrating. If our goals were at odds, I could be very, I could be stubborn. But one thing I've learned over the years is like, it's always subjective and like one person might fixate on certain elements to express what they're going for that maybe just completely fly over the head of another person and then you wonder why do they care so much about that being just right, you know. And so I think there was some of that going on. To him, he's like, “This doesn't have to be perfect. Why do you want it to be perfect?” And so I can be empathetic to some of his frustration with me. But assuming that those lyrics are about his frustration with me, it's like, it felt a bit much, maybe, But also makes me wish that maybe we would have just communicated better and had more conversations. So then it's weird to be playing drums on a song, where the singer is mad at you (laughs). 

Yeah and you make me feel like I'm half my age and at least twice as nervous, you know, like, referencing this dynamic of us as teenagers, and having similar tensions over how to approach recording and stuff. But, you know, maybe I'm just being super self absorbed and…(laughs).

Neil Gust: I just thought it sounded great, I thought it rocked. You know, it was rare enough that Elliott would write a rock song at that point. So I was just happy we had something like it.

Sam Coomes: I mean, the reality was, Elliott was an interesting person. And if you're his friend, and you're hanging around, and there's all this, I mean, you know, I don’t want to put him down but there tended to be a lot of drama around Elliott (laughs). And so you write about that, because you're caught up in it. And I think that's natural and good to write about, you know, these sort of psychological phenomena that are happening around your life. So it's quite possible that they had an argument about that and they probably both had good points. Again, trying to stay out of the conflicts between the band members who had a lot more invested in the band emotionally, and just physically and timewise, just had to be my strategy (laughs). So a few times, I remember trying to assuage people and say, like, “Come on, you know, we're working, let's keep working.” Yeah, it's unfortunate, there was so much conflict, but sometimes good things are born out of conflict.

Tony Lash: It would have been great to get through it without the conflicts and the tension. But maybe on some level, that added to it, I don't know. It's hard to know if it would have gone differently if everything would have gone smoothly.

Neil Gust: That's where the title of the record came from. It's completely meaningless. It's just, I don't even think he knew what “mic city sons” was. But that's, I think that's the first line, “Mic city sons seem to dumb everything down.”

Tony Lash: It's a good title. You know, I didn't extend my, whatever hurt feelings I might have had to the album being named that because it's a really great title. So you can't argue with it.

Neil Gust: I took that line and said, “That's the name of the record.” I don't know why. And he said, “Okay.” But I love that song. I just think it rocks. 

Our record was very internal. And full of like, the unspoken emotion of what we were going through, but also just what we were like. That's just what we wrote about. So to have a rock song that's trying to push out of that holding things internally is sort of the tension of the whole record.

“Blue Highway” 

Tony Lash: This is another one, I remember where I was struggling to get just the right feel, and feeling like I do a take and they say something about the feel not being quite right. And just not quite understanding what they mean. Like it needed to swing in a certain way, the way I was doing, like the toms in the verses, but not feeling, I wasn't feeling massively frustrated at the time, it was just kind of like, “I don't know what you mean. I want to get it right. I want people to be happy with it.” But doing more takes on that one than a lot of the other songs. Yeah, I mean, they were definitely right in getting me to play that feel. I just remember in the moment, not quite understanding what I was doing wrong. And that can be frustrating. When you're on the other side of the foam and you can't see anyone's face. I think I remember hearing an interview about The Police when they were doing Synchronicity and how they couldn't get along. And they were all in different parts of this big studio complex and there was a video. Like they had a camera on Stewart Copeland, but he couldn't see anyone else and you do a take and then there just be silence. You're like sitting at the end of a take not getting any feedback from people and it is a really, it's a vulnerable moment where you can feel like, “Okay, that wasn't right.” But you don't know why and nobody's saying anything for a bit so you can kind of just like insert all your insecurities into that dead air there while you're waiting for someone to say something.

Neil Gust: “Blue Highway” is the kind of the last version of two other songs that all sound really different. But they share kind of some of the same lyrics. The lyric they all share is about “the windshield cracking and the lines in my hand and the map of a broken heart,” which is just this imagery I was clinging to about what the band was going through and what my friendship with Elliott was going through, where I just felt like it was cracking. And that it was fate that it was in the palm of my hand and it was breaking my heart. 

So that was what the most important lines in that song were. Everything else, I just had to come up with something to finish it. I think that is the last one that got finished for the record. And I don't remember much beyond that. It was a race towards the end. There was a period in the middle, I remember it was over Thanksgiving, where Elliott and I just needed to get a lot of overdubs and a lot of our parts done, and that I remember being great. Where we just worked together, we were recording each other, we were there every day and we got a ton of stuff done. And then Rob and Tom came back, and they're like, “Great!” and then helped us finish up. And then we took it, Elliott and I drove down in a Lincoln Towncar to the studio that Rob and Tom had in California, and mixed it there. That was it. 

“See You Later”

Neil Gust: “See You Later,” I remember, when Elliott played what he was working on, I was like, “That's the single!” Like, “That's great! That's a super catchy song.”

Sam Coomes: That was one of my favorite songs on the record. And I remember first hearing it and thinking, “Oh this song’s great.” I think I told Elliott something like, “Oh this song is gonna buy you a house” (laughs). Because it seemed like a hit song to me, you know, like, a legit hit. It didn't turn out to be but it had that air about it to me.

Tony Lash: “See You Later” was one of the first songs that we worked out before even starting recording. It was one of the first songs I think that we practiced with Sam. That's one where I do remember a sense of we had come back from that tour that I talked about where there was a tension around changing the sound of the band. And I remember they came over to rehearse in the basement of the house where I was living. It was the same basement where we mixed Roman Candle and the Self-Titled record. And I remember, there was a sense of how that opening riff comes in, of it being like, “Oh, this is a really different feel for Heatmiser.”

Neil Gust: Every once in a while we would connect on something and just nail it. And I think the guitars on that song are just fucking rad. It's a great groove. I can't believe how laid back Tony is and how we still stay together. And it just has this slow, rocking groove. That's kind of the best part of what that band could do.

Sam Coomes: Even though it's kind of a very commercial and I thought it was gonna be a hit. It's recorded kind of minimally just like a band playing, which is one of the things I really love about it. It doesn't have a bunch of overdubs, and it doesn't sound overly careful. And for an obvious pop song, something that I thought could be a hit, I thought that was a great approach. To not put like, “Let's put strings on it,”  or you know, obvious production touches to make it more commercial. It was already commercial enough, just the melody and the feel and the rhythm of the song. It was already there. 

For some reason, I didn't find this little catch line, “See You Later” as annoying as “Get Lucky.”  It's a little bit similar, just like throwing in a line that people use all the time. It's a writing device that I actually use a lot too and I think it's good. And I think in this case, it's successful because you know, you can interpret that line, even though it's mundane and used every single day by most people, in different ways if you start thinking about it. 

Neil Gust: I mean, it just sounded like a single to me. You know, it seemed like it was the catchiest one lyrically, and it sounded great. And then nothing happened with it. You know, we didn't choose to make the video out of that song and chose “Plainclothes Man” instead. And then we just abandoned the record.

Sam Coomes: I think I was quite aware that people were right on the verge of just throwing up their hands and saying, “Forget it.” But you know, at the same time, I think people also could hear the music, and were happy with what was happening. A lot of times bands get into that it's not…you're having problems that don't have anything to do with the actual music, but they’re interpersonal things, they’re just problems you're going through in your life. At some point you have to focus on the music and decide if that's worthwhile. When bands break up, it's when, you know, you have the normal trauma and drama, and then you listen to the music and like, “This sucks (laughs). There's nothing here anymore.” But if the music's good, you have incentive to continue. 

Tony Lash: When Rob and Tom came on board, it really did feel like things were going more smoothly. I think it gave me more hope for the viability of the band. And I remember being out on the front porch of the house while Elliott was having a cigarette and saying something about our next album. And he asked me, “Oh, you think that there will be more after this?” And it wasn't like, in a mean way, or whatever. But like, I guess it struck me like, I guess I hadn't been, at that point, I wasn't thinking about the end of the band. I still felt like we could work together. So it wasn't feeling like there was this inevitability of it being over. I mean, I think that Elliott probably knew that that was going to be it or that was his feeling that he really wanted to do his own thing. Part of my feeling about having some hope might have just been because I had extracted myself from a lot of the recording process, the overdub process at that point. And so I wasn't necessarily witnessing tension between Eliott and Neal, that much. I just maybe felt somewhat relieved of the tension at that point. And it seemed like, “Oh, we can work with outside producers and get good stuff done. And so maybe this could keep going.” Because we had a contract with Virgin that was for several records and so, you know, in some ways, it felt like a good deal to be able to have our own studio and be able to have advances and have creative control and do our own thing. And so I think, after things are going seemingly more smoothly, I guess I naively thought that maybe we can continue.

Neil Gust: When we embarked on the major label deal and buying a studio and making this record, I fully believed that if we made a great record, it would make things easier, and it would make the next step easier. You know, we would finally have a booking agent, we would maybe start selling out shows, we would make another record we'd get on the radio, our records would end up in record stores when we actually showed up in town and to play. I thought all of that stuff was going to follow.

“Half Right”

Elliott Smith: Hey Neil, do you want to play that song? Or do you want me to just play it? It’s up to you. 

Neil Gust: Is there a guitar? 

Elliott Smith: Is there a guitar that Neil can play? You can play Sean’s guitar. You look like Roy Rogers with that guitar. You going to play loud or something? 

Neil Gust: You bet.

Elliott Smith: This is a song that I made up today but it’s probably kind of bad.

(from Live at Umbra Penumbra - September 17th, 1994)

Tony Lash: I have a distinct memory of Rob and Tom being adamant there shouldn't be more than 12 songs. I don't remember the thought process in deciding to make “Half Right” unlisted. 

Neil Gust: On London Calling, “Train In Vain” isn't credited on the original pressing. I just thought that was the coolest thing. It was just this idea of hidden treasures that we were always trying to put into the recording. That song was just supposed to be a hidden treasure.

Tony Lash: “Half Right,” is among my favorite Elliott songs. I think that there's such an elegance and simplicity to the chord changes and the melody. I mean, it's deceptively simple, but I find it really moving. And I have just great feelings attached to that song not only because of the quality of the song and the songwriting, but because I said the drums happened in one take. And it just felt really easy compared to a lot of the rest of the recording.

Neil Gust: Compared to something like “The Fix Is In,” which was very complicated to play. “Half Right” was just this effortless song. It probably came together really fast. I don't remember much else about it except that I loved it.

Tony Lash: There were some developments in Elliott’s songwriting, kind of after Heatmiser, where I felt like I got a bit detached from what he was doing. It could get so complex in the arrangements and like he got really into passing chords and, like his songs, to me sometimes sounded like they'd be all passing chords. And “Half Right” to me feels like this apex of a beautiful simplicity that's really emotionally direct. And like I said, deceptive simplicity. It's not simple songwriting. It's a very well crafted song, but the emotion is just really accessible in it. 

Sam Coomes: Yeah, that's a good song. It's got a nice emotional resonance to it to me. To me, some of the later stuff is over produced and, you know, and I was there. It was really, it was great, I was able to go into the studio and Abbey Road with him. And as a musician, you know, that was really fun and interesting but honestly, I think in the end, I think I'd prefer the more stripped down stuff. 

Neil Gust: So we did all the vocals last and I do remember thinking, “Well fuck, I wish I had put a bunch of harmonies on my songs.” Like, “This sounds incredible.” But then we were out of time.  

Tony Lash: Yeah, I don't know, I remember being at a session where we kind of edited the album sequence together to send for mastering. I think it was just me and Elliott. You know, the only memory I really have of that was just listening back to the finished version of “Half Right.”  And like when his background vocals come in, those ah’s come in in the last verse and just being like, “Wow, that's really great.” So I just remember that moment of hearing those and just being like, “That’s really great,” and he seemed to really appreciate that I had noticed that detail. 

Neil Gust: When we finished it, the record company thought it was a great record. They were very complimentary about it. They're happy with what we made. But we weren't going to tour. And as soon as that became clear, and as soon as it was clear, like the machinations of what was happening with Elliott’s solo stuff, there was no momentum for the band once that record was done. It just stopped. 

Tony Lash: I think Elliott was doing a solo tour and I hadn’t heard anything from him for a while and I needed to decide whether I was going to continue to see through the Dandy Warhols record, or go back to working with Heatmiser. And since I hadn't heard anything, I just went ahead and booked more studio time with the Dandy Warhols. And then I remember getting a phone call from him where he wanted to talk about doing a tour and I said, “I just committed to this record.” And he seemed really frustrated with that, too. Like, “Well we need to do this tour.” And I just said, “I hadn't heard anything from you so I had to make a decision.” So yeah, that must have been before we did the “Plainclothes Man” video. You know, when we got back, I composed a very, well an overly pointed, let's call it a resignation letter, that I sent and emailed. You know, I think I wouldn't do that now. It was definitely taking out a lot of my pent up frustration on him. So it was unnecessarily harsh. But I was really just feeling done at that point. 

Neil Gust: The label was like, “You have to tour.” Tony is like, “I’m done.” And so we got John Moen to play drums. I remember that everybody on that tour was just mainly interested in getting Elliott away from the band. It wasn’t that fun. It was fun being with Sam and John. But it wasn't very long, it was like two weeks or something. And then that was the last thing we did. 

Sam Coomes: Yeah, at that point. I think we were calling it like the contractual obligation tour or something like that the label booted the album down to a subsidiary like an indie subsidiary. And Mic City Sons, we did that tour, it was desolate (laughs). There was nobody at the shows. I mean, you know, a few cities, a few people came out. But, uh, yeah, it wasn't, that record was not a successful record commercially. 

Neil Gust: And we didn't officially break up until like, a year later. Yeah, he called me and he said, “So I'm going to sign to DreamWorks. And in order to do that, I have to close this contract with Heatmiser.” And I said, “Okay.” That was it. And it didn't, it didn't even feel like we're never going to play together again. It just felt like a contractual obligation. That's probably like, was probably wishful thinking on my part. 

Sam Coomes: You know, even after Heatmiser broke up, I continued to work with Elliott for years. So, you know, we played shows together, him solo and my band. And so we were still quite, you know, close and working together. And, yeah, I could see, certainly, I watched the whole thing from close range. I could see it happening. I mean, he moved away from Portland, and I did all of the tours that he did that were full band tours. Although, you know, at a certain point, I had had enough and he had got a new band together, but I don't think those guys ever went on tour. So yeah, at the end, things were weird, in a lot of ways. But again, this is, you know, this was a long time ago. I'm at peace with the whole situation. I don't really, I just leave it in the past. 

Tony Lash: We'd gone through a while where we didn't speak to the point where I remember being in New York a couple of times and being at a bar or a show where he was and we just pretended like we didn't know each other. We didn't speak at all. It was that bad. Then after seeing him on the Oscars, I was driving down a street called Broadway here in Portland and I just saw him sitting outside of Starbucks by himself. And I just decided to pull over, walked up and just said, I know we've had our problems but I'm really proud of you. And he was instantly receptive, he got up and gave me a hug. And we sat and talked for a while, and he wasn't living here anymore at that point. So our friendship, we didn't get back to a close friendship, but we were on good terms. I’d hang out with him a few more times after that, you know, and it was fine, it was kind of back to being able to just hang out, joke around even if we weren't as close as we had been before. Yeah, I'm glad that we had a chance to resolve that tension while he was still around. 

Neil Gust: We'd been through so much together, I just thought, “Who knows what the future is going to be?” And I didn't think we would ever stop being friends. Every time Elliott finished a record, he would bring it over and we would listen to it together. And same thing with me if I finished something, I'd bring it over and we listened to it together. We always stayed connected about music. 

Sam Coomes: Occasionally, somebody will come up to me and say, “Oh, Heatmiser is my favorite band.” (laughs) And it kind of blows my mind because we were just such an obscure band and we did not have success. But I think because Elliott went on to have success, people went back and like, listened to that, and and we're like, “Wow, what a great band.” So the reputation of the band and the audience for the band has really grown a lot. At the time that we were active, we were just, you know, completely underground and had just the nearest vestige of an audience. So I think it's nice, whenever you can reach people in any project, even if you're just peripherally involved with it. You got to be happy. I mean, that's what it's all about. I mean, I'm not just a musician, I'm a fan too. Music means so much to me, when I hear something that moves me that means something to me. I'm so grateful. So to hear other people convey that to me that something I was involved with. And my friends were, you know, we're even more involved with, it's very gratifying. 

Tony Lash: I think Mic City Sons is definitely a high point. I mean, it's so far above the first two records, just in terms of the songwriting quality, the dynamics, the synergy between Neil and Elliott's writing styles, and really being able to devote a lot of time and energy to having the songs come out the best way they could. We did work on it a lot. Way more than our first two records. And so really, on every level, it was a huge step up. It is very meaningful to have been involved in something that people still care about 25 years later. 

Neil Gust: I think the thing that I liked the most about that record, is that it has a really solid distinct personality and a sound that it's really what we set out to do. And I didn't realize that we had succeeded at it at the time, because we just gave up on it, you know. I hadn't heard Mic City Sons in like 15 years, and I listened to it a couple weeks ago in the car. And I was like, “This is great! Oh my god, this sounds…” Well, I just heard it for what it was, which is just like the end of something is coming.

Outro:

Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Heatmiser. You'll also find a link to stream or purchase Mic City Sons. Thanks for listening.

Credits:

"Get Lucky"

"Plainclothes Man"

"Low-Flying Jets"

"Rest My Head Against the Wall"

"The Fix Is In"

"Eagle Eye"

"Cruel Reminder"

"You Gotta Move”

"Pop in G"

"Blue Highway"

"See You Later"

"Half Right"

All songs written by Neil Gust or Elliott Smith. Published by Mirabunda Music (BMI) and Universal Music - Careers on Behalf of Itself and Spent Bullets Music (BMI)

℗ & © 1996 Virgin Records of America, Inc. issued under exclusive licensing to Caroline Records, Inc.

Produced and recorded by Tom Rothrock, Rob Schnapf and Heatmiser. Mixed by Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf except “Rest My Head Against The Wall” mixed by Tony Lash.

Performed by Sam Coomes, Neil Gust, Elliott Smith and Tony Lash. Additional vocals on “Get Lucky” by Aaron Day. Backing vocals on “Cruel Reminder” by Sean Croghan.

Mastered by Steve Marcussen at Precision Mastering.

Episode Credits:

Theme Music:

“Winter Cold” by North Home

Intro/Outro Music:

“Weekend Song” by Charlie Don’t Shake

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam