Glenn Tipton lights up 'Baptizm of Fire'

(Feb. 6, 1997)

Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton doesn't even know where to start on recounting the long, torturous trail of his solo debut album.

So, he tries from the beginning ...

"We really didn't know if the thing would ever come off," Tipton said recently from his home in England, "and now we're finally off and running. I began writing for it about five years ago, but there was never any rush to get it done. I just wanted it to be done right."

The odyssey of "Baptizm of Fire," scheduled for a Feb. 18 release (on Atlantic), began when singer Rob Halford left Judas Priest in mid-1992 to form the rock group Fight. Tipton found himself in a quandary: Should he keep Judas Priest's heavy-metal vision alive and find a new singer or should he go off on his own? He opted for both.

"Where do you go from Priest?" he said with a laugh. "Initially, with my new album, I went too far behind and strayed away from what I'm so accustomed to. Metal will always be in my blood, so I got back to it.

"I certainly didn't think I'd end up singing on it. We recorded it with various artists around the world over a two, three-year period. I had to find direction, and it's not that easy going out on your own after so many years with one band. Making it was almost like a sitcom, where your characters don't quite develop at first, but I took it all very seriously."

Players assembled for Tipton's brand of raw, snarling rock 'n' roll included The Who's John Entwistle, drumming veteran Cozy Powell, Mr. Big bassist Billy Sheehan and Ugly Kid Joe singer Whitfield Crane and drummer Shannon Larkin. Tipton handled all the guitar work and, for the first time since his pre-Priest days in the early '70s, held his own at the microphone.

"I've played backseat for so many years," Tipton said, "so it was a big adjustment for me. I'll be the first to admit I won't win a Grammy for my vocals. I've had no vocal idols to follow, so this is me and no one else, and I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out."

There are shades of Priest throughout "Baptizm of Fire," but Tipton throws a few curveballs, including the anti-drug "Fuel" and a serviceable, hard-rock stab at the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black."

"I've always been a great fan of the Stones," Tipton said, "but there was no use trying to do it note for note. That's the easy way out. I was going more for three and a half minutes of mayhem."

Tipton is most proud of the way "Baptizm of Fire" evolved and grew under such extraordinary circumstances and, despite the Priest-like approach, claiming its own style.

"The last five years have been the best of my life in music," he said. "I really had to dig deep inside myself and grow as a musician. These guys, these great musicians I played with, they instilled a lot of confidence in me. There was an electricity to the whole project, and I can't thank them enough."

And, as for Priest, it's far from over. After a five-year search and poring over more than 1,000 applications, they have finally found Halford's replacement: His name is Ripper Owens, a 28-year-old singer from Ohio. Tipton said Owens' vocal style blew them away.

"We flew him over and the next day he sang the first two verses of 'Victim of Changes,' and I knew right then he was the one," he said. "He had been a Priest fan for years and had all the mannerisms down. It was stunning."

BWF (before we forget): Tipton, who said his "first love will always be Priest," promises the band's comeback album, "Jugulator" (CMC International; released Oct. 28, 1998), will be "brutal, right between the eyes."

Tommy Tutone is back on the line

(July 12, 1998)

During MTV's infancy in early 1982, it was hard to escape Tommy Tutone's infectious, million-selling "867-5309/Jenny." Even 16 years later, that phone number is more recognizable than 10-10-321.

Lead singer Tommy Heath, who started the San Francisco rock group with guitarist Jim Keller in 1978, acknowledges the song's impact, but he's just as happy with his recently released Secret Disc debut album "Rich Text Files."

"I thought I was very lucky," Heath said recently of the group's brief '80s success. "We came out of San Francisco, where we were not popular at all. We were considered kind of corny there, and we didn't have the proper haircut or the right fashion. We emphasized songs. Then the videos started to happen, so we were kind of in the right place at the right time for that. I have no regrets about it at all.

" 'Jenny' is more popular, I think, now than it was four or five years ago. It probably would've been in several movies, but I guess it's a publishing thing. A lot of people can tell me where they were when they heard the song, what they were doing. It nails a time and place for people."

Rather than avoid the specter of "Jenny," Heath, now living in Portland, Ore., embraces it, providing a sequel in the track "Jenny's Calling." The updated Jenny has a daughter who is running wild.

"We've come full circle with it," Heath said. "This is after years of going into publishers and having them listen to all my songs and none of them sounding like 'Jenny,' and they're thinking, 'I don't know if there's anything that sounds like that on here, and I don't know if there's any hits here.' Finally, one day we were fooling around and played that, and it ended up on the record. We're now doing a follow-up called 'The Son of the Monster That Returned to Eat Jenny.' "

"867-5309" reached No. 4 on Billboard's pop chart and the group's second Columbia album, "Tommy Tutone-2," cracked the Top 20, but the dial tone quickly went dead. Heath said they spent too much time working on the follow-up LP, "National Emotion."

"It was going to be our 'concept' album," he said. "We worked on it when we should've been playing all over America. We played a lot after 'Jenny' came out and we actually had two or three other really good songs from that album I figured could be singles, but you know how it goes. So they had us in there making another one, and by the time we finished it, all the people who had made us famous weren't at CBS anymore.

"Then we started bickering amongst ourselves at that point. That third album, which I like very much, is for collectors only at this point. It's not on CD anywhere. We went on, and my partner, Jim Keller (who wrote 'Jenny'), and I broke up. We drifted around, I wrote a lot of songs. I always liked different kinds of music, so I had a country band on the side and I had a soul band, and I recorded a solo album in Muscle Shoals."

Heath is touring again as Tommy Tutone and the response has been beyond his wildest dreams.

"I've been playing for 10 years locally and now all of a sudden we're cool again," he said, laughing. "I don't know why, but I guess it all comes around.

"I'm not into going out and being an oldies act. Those were good times and we like the songs from then, but this is now, so here we are."

BWF (before we forget): Dial up Tommy Tutone on the Web @ www.secretdisc.com.

No sophomore slump for Tonic

(Dec. 5, 1999)

After years struggling to make a name for itself, Tonic finally struck gold - and platinum - with its debut Polydor album, "Lemon Parade," in 1997, along with a pair of indelible rock hits, "If You Could Only See" and "Open Up Your Eyes."

Don't think for a second that singer-guitarist Emerson Hart, guitarist Jeff Russo and bassist Dan Lavery weren't worried about how to sustain that momentum.

All their fears were erased with the Nov. 9 release of "Sugar," which debuted several weeks ago at No. 81 on the Billboard 200 pop chart, while the single "Knock Down Walls" climbs the mainstream rock track chart.

"That was always in the back of our minds, having a slump," Hart said recently, "but we really as a band tried to make a conscious decision to leave that shit at the door. We had a record to make, we love the songs, and we knew they needed tender loving care and they needed to be put down on tape organically. We didn't want to overproduce this record."

They buckled down because they had to: They chose to produce "Sugar" themselves.

"It scared the hell out of the label," Hart said, "but it was a great opportunity for us. We went from one label to another, and we said, 'We want to produce our own record,' and they were like, 'Excuse me?' We know the music the best; Jack Joseph Puig, who produced our first record, his schedule was all messed up. We said, 'We can do this. We have the studio experience, we have the knowledge of the gear.' We brought in a great engineer (Andy Wallace), who is a friend of ours. He drove the boat while we navigated the waters.

"The only part about it that sucked was the paperwork, staying on budget, the stuff that has nothing to do with the music. That's kind of a drag. But we got through it. We had a great production assistant, she kind of took that weight. Once we had the freedom to have play time, we were okay."

Tonic did itself proud: "Sugar" displays the band's progressively improving songwriting, instrumentation and vocals - from the catchy opener "Future Says Run" to the instantly sweet "Waiting For the Light to Change."

No one-hit-album wonder here.

"We've always been a slow burn, slow build kind of band, and that's always worked in our favor," Hart said. "We've had some great success right off the bat with this album; people have been really receptive to the songs. I don't have any complaints.

"I chose this business for a reason, because this is what I love to do, this is all I know how to do. That's why I was put here, to make music, whether it's 10 people who understand it or 10 million. The only difference between 10 people and 10 million is a lifestyle, for me, and I can adapt to anything."

Tonic is enjoying its ride, Hart says, and though the success of "Sugar" and the band's recent tour with the Goo Goo Dolls will only enhance their popularity, they are prepared for the future, when it all inevitably subsides.

"As a band, we're pretty frugal," Hart said. "We don't spend money where it's unnecessary. We don't do the planes and the jets and none of us has any bad drug habits. We're just really careful where we put our money. I keep my money in the bank and set up my retirement fund and all that shit I don't like to think about. But that's the reality, it's a hello-goodbye business. You never know when it'll end, so you have to stay on top of your toes.

"When I started this, it wasn't for the money, obviously, because I had so many years of no money. I'm in it because I love to play. The favorite part of my day is when I have my first coffee and cigarette and pick up my guitar. When that changes, I know I have to get out."

BWF (before we forget): Toast Tonic on the Web @ www.tonic-online.com.

TONIC PUTS A BOLD FACE ON: (Nov. 27, 1997): Right here and now, Emerson Hart wants to put an end to the vicious rumors that the members of Tonic do not have faces.

"It's true," the lead singer-songwriter said recently, mocking critics of the platinum-selling rock quartet, "we do have features and characteristics that resemble human beings. I, for one, have a nose, a pair of eyes and a mouth. And I can vouch for the other guys."

After 20 months on the road in support of "Lemon Parade," the group's Polydor debut album, Hart's punchiness is understandable. Like Collective Soul and Matchbox 20, Hart and his band mates Jeff Russo (guitar), Dan Rothchild (bass) and Kevin Shepard (drums) have an image problem: Radio listeners are humming along to their hits, but darned if they could pick out the group in a police lineup.

"There's nothing you can do except keep touring and getting your face out there," Hart said. "MTV is very picky about who they play, and that makes a difference. You know, I consider us an interesting, good-looking band. We're all very different looking, but it's something you need to see live.

"I look at it this way: We're going to be on the road doing what we do no matter what kind of success we have, so eventually people are going to figure out who we are. We get recognized here and there, but it's really about how our show is."

The show is doing just fine. Buoyed by appearances this year on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" and "Late Show With David Letterman," the Los Angeles-based rockers are making names for themselves. The platinum-selling "Lemon Parade," which peaked at No. 28 on Billboard's pop chart, has generated four rock-radio hits: "Open Up Your Eyes," "Casual Affair," "If You Could Only See" (the album's standout track) and the current single, "Soldier's Daughter." And a fruitful tour with The Verve Pipe continued the groundswell.

"Our record came out in July of '96 and something like 20,000 records came out that year," Hart said. "For us to do as well as we've done and go platinum, it's incredible. The music's good, of course, but I also think luck has a lot to do with it. You can never count on what the people are going to like, you know. You just have to do what you want to do, and if they like it, they like it. If they don't, whatever."

Hart said they will get reacquainted with their families and loved ones over the holidays - "They'll get to see what our faces look like after going through the rock 'n ' roll car wash," he said, jokingly - and after New Year's Day, they will begin preproduction on a follow-up album.

Tower of Power is all 'Souled Out'

(Aug. 24, 1995)

Tower of Power leader-founding member Emilio Castillo has a ready-made answer for anyone who asks him, "What do you think about this new '70s trend?"

"I tell them, 'If you hadn't told me, I wouldn't have noticed it was here,' because it never left," the saxophone player said recently, laughing during a stop on the venerable Oakland, Calif., band's U.S. tour. "I make this kind of music because this is the kind I know how to make. And I know there's a lot of people like myself who love this kind of music."

Castillo has such an affinity for soul that, on the eve of entering the studio to record a new album for Epic, he abruptly pulled back and retooled the whole project.

He wanted to make "a great soul music record," like the ones from Tower of Power's glory days in the '70s, and that meant going with a more true-blue soul singer. The result is Tower of Power's third Epic album, "Souled Out" (released Aug. 15), which features new lead singer Brent Carter, plus new drummer Herman Matthews and three newcomers in the horn section - Barry Danielian, Bill Churchville and David Mann.

The hard part was asking vocalist Tom Bowes to step aside after six years.

"I just told him, 'We're looking to do something different this time, and I don't want to sneak around behind your back and try to find the ultimate singer,' " Castillo said. "I said, 'I'm gonna tell you right up front, I'm looking for somebody and I need your help until I find him.' He was gracious enough to stick around until we found Brent Carter."

Carter's resume includes backup work with Regina Belle and BeBe & CeCe Winans. He's no Lenny Williams, who was there during Tower of Power's greatest chart success ("You're Still a Young Man," "So Very Hard to Go," and "Don't Change Horses (In the Middle of the Stream)"), but Carter does help them get back on the soul track.

It couldn't come at a better time. Tower of Power's back catalog has been revived on CD by Warner Bros. in the past three years and has been selling well, Castillo said. "My royalties are definitely higher than they have been in many, many years," he said.

Columbia also is getting in on the act. They're compiling cuts off the group's three late-'70s albums and have dug up unreleased material for a future collection.

What keeps Tower of Power going after more than 25 years?

"I think it's the music," Castillo said. "There's not a lot of Tower of Powers out there. We're not the average five-piece rock band. Fortunately for us, the kind of music that we make, there's an audience for it. It's not a huge audience, but it's ours and they're loyal as hell."

BWF (before we forget): The Tower of Power album discography - "East Bay Grease" (1971, San Francisco/Atlantic); "Bump City" (1972, Warner); "Tower of Power" (1973); "Back to Oakland" (1974); "Urban Renewal" (1975); "In the Slot" (1975); "Live & In Living Color" (1976); "Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now" (1976, Columbia); "We Came to Play!" (1978); "Back On the Streets" (1979); "Direct" (1981, Sheffield Labs); "Power" (1987, Cypress/PolyGram); "Monster On a Leash" (1991, Epic); "T.O.P." (1993); "Souled Out" (1995); "Rhythm & Business" (1997).

It's the most wonderful time of the year for Trans-Siberian Orchestra

(Dec. 11, 1997)

Paul O'Neill and his Trans-Siberian Orchestra will be a fixture at Christmas every year for the next 30 years. Atlantic Records has told him so.

O'Neill wrote, produced and played rhythm guitar on the orchestra's 1996 debut album, "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" (Lava/Atlantic). The album, combining Broadway-style rock opera with traditional holiday melodies, caught O'Neill and the label by surprise, selling out its lone shipment of more than 150,000 copies. This season, Atlantic was prepared: It relaunched the album in November and projects it to sell more than 200,000 copies a week through Christmas ... and many more in the years to come.

That's music to O'Neill's ears, especially since the album tells the moving story of a man praying for his lost child and finding an angel of mercy. The message has touched thousands of listeners who have written O'Neill to thank him.

"There are some that break your heart," the native New Yorker said. "I got one from a father who hadn't talked to his daughter in years; he heard the album and started to cry. He went to another city, about 100 miles away, found her and they got back together.

"We got a letter from somebody in Oklahoma who was thinking of killing himself, and he heard the album, said it made him stop and think. When you get those kinds of things, it's better than any other reward in the industry. It's better than money, it's better than radio play. It makes it all worthwhile."

The most widely played track, the instrumental "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24," first appeared on an album called "Dead Winter Dead" by the Tampa rock group Savatage. O'Neill has produced several of the group's albums and composed many of its conceptual pieces. Savatage's version did so well at radio in early 1996, O'Neill said, he brain-stormed over a rock opera based solely on Christmas.

"When you write any album, it's a challenge," O'Neill said, "because you're trying to compete with the best musicians out there, the legends of the time, be they Elton John, Billy Joel or Led Zeppelin.

"But when you're making a Christmas album, the past 400 years of musicianship is the competition. A lot of these classic Christmas songs were written by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven. It's very intimidating, so what we wanted to do was take the best of the old songs and rearrange them so they sounded fresh and combine them with new songs."

O'Neill expects to transform the story into a theater production next year or by 1999.

"The only problem is that I would have to leave the studio," O'Neill said, "and there's going to be two more Trans-Siberian albums next year if I can get them finished, a regular rock opera and another Christmas opera, so it's going to be a crazy, crazy year."

BWF (before we forget): For more on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, visit www.trans-siberian.com.

Keeping pace with Treadmill Trackstar

(Dec. 4, 1997)

Not since the glory years of Electric Light Orchestra has the cello received front-and-center treatment in a rock band. Columbia, S.C.-based quartet Treadmill Trackstar, signed to Hootie & The Blowfish's Atlantic-distributed Breaking Records, looks to buck that trend.

With its second album, "Only This" (released Oct. 28), Treadmill Trackstar takes the classic guitar-pop approach and tops it off with the wafting harmonies of Katie Hamilton's cello. It's the brain child of lead singer-guitarist Angelo Gianni, who longed for an unconventional sound in a "same-as-it-ever-was" rock world.

"The individual parts are fairly simplistic, actually, but there's so much layering in the music that the cello fills out harmonically," Hamilton said recently. "Everything fits together and intertwines. Most people who listen to it don't get it at first, but after a few listens, they do, and after they walk away, they usually end up singing something. They're hooked."

Tracks such as "Shouldn't I Take" and "Velveteen" and Treadmill Trackstar's gritty determination won over Hootie, who made them Breaking's first signing last year. They recorded the album last winter at Memphis' legendary Ardent Studios, overseen by producer Joe Hardy (ZZ Top, The Hooters).

Carving their own niche was just "a bit of dumb luck," drummer Tony Lee said.

"On our independent record, there were some songs that needed to be acoustic and not rockin'. So, we thought, 'Let's have a cello in there,' " he said. "We kept the cello and kept working with it, and it turned out really well. On the basic level, it's another melodic thing besides the voice. Angelo's not into guitar solos; we're not that kind of band. The cello fills in all the spaces just right."

It almost didn't happen at all. After a short stint with Lee in another band, Gianni started Treadmill Trackstar in 1993, but since Lee had moved to Los Angeles, he was purely on his own. He assembled several musician friends to help record an independent CD, co-produced by Hootie guitarist Mark Bryan.

Still needing a band to support the album on tour, Gianni convinced Lee to return to Columbia. He then added Hamilton and bassist Chris Grigg.

"When Angelo and I first met, we clicked on many levels," Lee said. "When I moved away, I really missed music in my life. I tried to play with some other guys in California; everybody I played with loved me and wanted me to join their bands, but I just couldn't see it. I came back and recorded the CD with Angelo, and I thought, 'This is it.' So, when I went back to L.A., it started playing on my conscience and Angelo just kept riding my ass to join the band. One day I decided, 'screw it, let's do it,' and I haven't regretted it one bit."

In record stores, a sticker on the cover of "Only This" calls it "cello-driven power-rock." Lee prefers "colorful rock."

"It's lush in a lot of ways that rock music isn't," he said. "The artsy-fartsy bands of the '70s, like ELO, Pink Floyd, in some ways, I guess we hearken back to them or evoke them. The songs definitely are adventurous."

BWF (before we forget): Run with Treadmill Trackstar on the Web @ www.treadmilltrackstar.com .

Treana makes her solo move

(May 17, 1998)

In the quaint seaside town of Penzance, England, teachers would admonish young Treana Morris for staring out the classroom window and daydreaming about going to the United States and becoming a pop star.

In 1992, at age 16, she almost made it.

As part of the dance duo TAG, with partner Gareth Young, Morris sang her way onto the U.S. charts with "The Way I Feel," peaking at No. 63, from their Scotti Brothers debut album "Contagious."

TAG faded, but Morris and Young continued their collaboration, with Young taking on more production work and co-writing. Morris, while hanging on to her R&B influences, began to delve into pop and acoustic rock.

She became, quite simply, Treana, and she's pursuing U.S. success again.

Treana bares it all on her solo debut album, "Naked," released April 28 on Backyard/All American. Young-produced tracks such as "I Know Better," "I Wanna Be So Bad (Landslide)" and the lead-off single, "Naked On You," display the maturity of a singer-songwriter who has lived up to her early promise.

"When you're that young, you don't understand," Treana said of TAG. "You're naive and you have no fear. You just do it. You have confidence when you're young. You lose it as you get older. I remember doing things at 10 years old that I would never dream of doing now. I used to stand up in the classroom and sing and be a complete prat. But I could never do that now."

Now 23, Treana isn't afraid to touch on deeply personal subjects, as in "Naked On You," about venting pent-up feelings after a relationship goes sour. She admits the lyrics and its title may be misinterpreted.

"Everyone thinks it's literal, but it's not," she said. "It was written like that, it was the first song that I had written that was blatant and obvious, but it's honest. It's not meant to be rude or offend anybody. It's just the way I was feeling at the time."

The accompanying video will be serviced to MTV and VH1 this month. Treana is hoping for the best.

"I don't know how it'll do," she said. "A lot of pieces have to come together. I didn't realize how much is involved in breaking a record. I really didn't. The more time I spend involved in the industry, I realize it depends on so many different things.

"When we were in TAG, I had no idea about the business side of it or the industry. Now I ask more questions. I want to know, and everybody's working really hard. There are a lot of people behind the scenes who do an awful lot to help."

In the Great Pop North, eyes are on Treble Charger

(July 10, 1997)

Short or tall, skinny or weighty, black, white or of Asian descent. It doesn't matter, Canadians are Canadians.

They're a proud people. From Vancouver to Goose Bay, they love their country, their hockey, their Moosehead and their diversity. And they love their music.

Like Treble Charger.

On the Canada side of Sault Ste. Marie, this power-pop quartet entered their expanive, edgy track "Red" in a new-music talent search in 1993. The winner was to take home a whooping $100,000.

"But it went completely unnoticed," bassist Rosie Martin said recently. "We thought, 'Wow, what's going on?' The next year, we didn't know what to do, what song to submit. We talked to a DJ there who was a judge, and we said, 'What do we do?' He said, 'Enter 'Red.' It was a mistake last year. It was overlooked and got in the wrong pile. I'll make sure it goes to the right pile.' "

Sure enough, he got it right. Treble Charger finished second, but it came with a $25,000 check. That's all they needed to finish their 1994 album, "nc-17," and from there, it snowballed: "Red" became a modern-rock hit in Canada and the video saw heavy rotation on the MuchMusic channel. They opened for the Posies, Redd Kross, Sebadoh and Radiohead, and their '95 follow-up, "self=titled," whipped up a major-label frenzy. RCA signed them, and now their third album, "Maybe It's Me," featuring a rerecording of "Red," is closing in on a July 29 release.

"The record company wanted us to redo 'Red,' and we wanted to redo it too simply because we weren't happy with the low-budget recording the first time around," Martin said. "It's the song that won't go away."

On "Maybe It's Me," Martin and band mates Trevor MacGregor (drums) and co-singer-guitarists Greig Nori and Bill Priddle display an obvious affinity for vintage rock while deftly avoiding sounding overly derivative. Martin gives some of the credit to producer Lou Giordano (Crash Test Dummies, Goo Goo Dolls, Paul Westerberg).

"We made the record we always wanted to make," Martin said. "When we were making our own records, we didn't have the money or the budget or the equipment. When we played back the track 'Mercury Smile,' which is one of my favorite songs on the album, it was like 'Holy cow, this really works.' We didn't realize till then how good it was."

BWF (before we forget): Get juiced with Treble Charger on the Web @ www.treblecharger.com.

Nobody makes a monkey out of Treehouse

(July 24, 1997)

Columbia, S.C., is slightly more than an ocean away from his native Liverpool, England, yet guitarist Keith Thomas of the rock group Treehouse says living in that state's capital, away from his wife and child, is worth the sacrifice.

Unable to carve a niche and feeling musically out of place in Liverpool, Thomas and singer-guitarist Peter Riley, bassist Paul O'Brien and drummer Abe Juckes packed their bags last summer to pursue success in the United States.

It began with a series of gigs in Southern California, including the venerable Whisky A-Go-Go. Eventually, a copy of their self-released album "Nobody's Monkey" landed in the hands of Hootie & the Blowfish's fledgling Breaking Records, which made the quartet its first signing. After serving as the opening act on Hootie's extensive European tour in December, they moved into a house in Columbia near Breaking's offices.

"Nobody's Monkey" was released in April, and now Treehouse is opening for fellow Columbia resident Edwin McCain.

Treehouse, Thomas said, feels right at home in Columbia. Their searing, soulful songs - and a slew of heartland instruments, such as Thomas' mandolin and Riley's banjo - have a rural feel, but with just a twinge of Liverpool pop to keep them honest.

"It's not like we sat down and said, 'Let's make this radio-friendly and U.S.A. friendly,' " Thomas said. "This was always the way we sounded. We felt like outsiders in Liverpool, in a way. England's a very narrow market, especially Liverpool. There are literally thousands of good bands there, but they're all biting at the same bisquit, trying to get a hold of the same piece. We never really sounded like any other band there."

Not that they didn't have their supporters back home. The local radio station regularly played tracks off "Nobody's Monkey" and the group had a sizable following, but the lure to the United States was too strong.

"We all miss home from time to time," Thomas said, "especially when we have a day off and we're sitting in a hotel somewhere. That's when your brain starts working too much, especially when you have family.

"It's really hard being away from my wife and kid, but you've just got to put it behind you. This is what I want to do, and they support me. There's no use in turning back now. There are millions of people in bands back in Liverpool who would love to be where we are, so I'm counting my blessings."

Trinket's ready to grab the brass ring

(March 14, 1999)

It's lonely out in the sticks. Singer Brian Youmans and bassist Tommy Salmon of the rock quintet Trinket know all too well.

Most of the songs on the group's RCA self-titled debut album, released Feb. 9, were written while Youmans and Salmon rented a house in Watkinsville, a small, nondescript town outside their base in Athens, Ga.

"It was out in the middle of nowhere," Salmon said recently. "You couldn't get cable there, you have to get a satellite dish, and we couldn't afford that, so we just listened to our favorite records and it wasn't a matter of 'What's happening now?' I mean, where we were living, nothing was happening. We had to make it happen."

"Me and Tom were talking about this the other day," Youmans said. "It seems like, to a certain degree, we gave a lot of ourselves on this record, and it was a matter of me and Tom out in Watkinsville dreaming up what fame and all that had to do with our lives or our take on it. It seems to be a recurring theme."

One of the album's highlights, "To Be a Star," addresses the dream with a cynical view.

"I was hearing a lot at the time that Eddie Vedder was pushing that away, how he was going through this thing where he didn't want that type of fame and notoriety, people going into his personal life," Youmans said. "At the time, I was a fan of Pearl Jam and I was thinking, 'What's the big problem? How bad can it be?' "

Trinket may not get to walk a mile in Vedder's shoes, but it's not for a lack of trying. Youmans, Salmon and guitarists J. Christopher Arrison and Jeffrey Fisher and drummer Derry De Lamar have fashioned a lean, hungry rock edge, surging on such tracks as "Unbehaved" (the first single), "Pure" and "All the Rave."

"We wanted a good guitar record," Salmon said, "and we have two excellent guitarists in our band. To hear them both going off like that is great. It's a rock album made by rock fans for rock fans, and it does seem the attention we're getting right off the bat and in clubs tend to be people who really like rock 'n' roll and are very serious about it, who have a knowledge of bands that will go back 30 years, that will go overseas. They're genuinely passionate about rock music, and I think they appreciate what we're doing."

The album is a departure from group's more poppy independent debut, "Your Head Is a Shimmer," which was produced by R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe. That's just the way they like it.

"I think it's going to be one of those albums," Salmon said, "where people are going to have to be aggressive about, where fans are going to have to say, 'This is my rock band.' With the lyrics we've done, with the music and the work we've put into it, I'd like to have people expect what we do out of other rock bands, like raise the bar. 'How come I'm not getting this level of intensity from other bands?' "

"We're obviously ambitious about our chances," Youmans said, "but in my mind, it's one step at a time. This college tour we're on (with Babe the Blue Ox and the Interpreters) and we're getting added to a lot of college radio, I'm feeling really good about that. There's certain stepping stones, and once we get to a certain point, I can probably predict a little better how we're going to do. For us, we feel we help fill a gap in rock music right now that isn't out there."

BWF (before we forget): Trinket is more than ornamental on the Web @ www.trinketrock.com.

The Troggs: From Andover, with love

(Oct. 27, 1994)

He wrote "Love Is All Around" 26 years ago, and to this day, Troggs lead singer Reg Presley still receives weekly requests from artists wanting to do cover versions.

"What was sent to me recently was 'Love Is All Around' done in reggae, by an Australian band," he said, laughing, in a recent phone interview from his home in Andover, England. "I can't believe it ... and it sounds quite good, actually."

None have matched the success of Scottish pop quartet Wet Wet Wet, whose "Love" version was used in the popular film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" earlier this year. The single topped the British chart for 14 weeks, the second-longest reign there in rock history, behind Bryan Adams' "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You." In America, "Love" hasn't fared as well, barely missing out on the Top 40, but it remains on the Billboard chart after 17 weeks.

The original, which peaked in America at No. 7 in 1968, appears on a new 12-track compilation, "The Best of The Troggs" (Fontana).

"Love Is All Around" was released two years after the rock quartet scored a stateside No. 1 with the raunchy "Wild Thing." Many thought "Love" suited the flower-power era, but Presley said it was more personal than that.

"I had just come back from a long tour ... it was a Sunday and the television was on when I walked into the room after a heavy English lunch, as it were," he said. "It was nice to be home. The telly was on, and I went to slop down on the sofa.

"Playing on the box was a Salvation Army band called the Joy Strings. They were shaking their tambourines and singing about love, and immediately I had an idea. I rushed to turn the TV off so I could think about it.

"The song was written in about 15 or 20 minutes. It was one of the fastest ones I had ever written."

The song's longevity is easy to explain, Presley said. "It doesn't offend anybody in any way, and you don't readily get fed up with it very quickly either. It's just one of those things."