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Heres a bit of info about the band.. the interview section covers alot more about the members though.
"This could be my chance to break out..." - "The Taste Of Ink"
Some go their entire lives toting an unrealized dream and an accompanying regret. Others slave to an instinctive hunger and hunt that dream until the hunger is sated.
The Used are hungry. Hailing from Orem, Utah, the band has surmounted homelessness, substance abuse and closed-minded environs to create compelling, sincere music, which they perform with style and verve live and on their debut album for Reprise Records.
Recorded in LA at the home studio of producer John Feldmann and at London's legendary Olympic Studios (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin), it contains thirteen anthems and ballads that thrum with the intensity of four guys who have given everything to one thing: music. Their effort is palpable in a spray of crashing rhythms, sublime melodies, candid lyrics, dynamic vocals and, natch, big guitars. The songs themselves are direct accounts.
"Maybe Memories" is a snapshot of singer Bert McCracken's drug-occluded past set to a Deftones-y groove. "A Box Full Of Sharp Objects" salutes the creative outlet, and "On My Own" is an acoustic heartbreak ballad that actually screams the pain. "Blue And Yellow" captures a shaky juncture in McCracken's friendship with guitarist Quinn Allman. "The Taste Of Ink" is the story of the band.
For The Used, music transcends the Stepford-like surroundings of their youth. "You're held down so long and told what to do," says drummer Branden Steineckert. "You're supposed to fit in this fuckin' mold all the time. Music is your one place to break out and just say fuck it all, do what you want, be the person you are with no fuckin' rules."
And fuck it all, they did. Relationships, day jobs and other responsibilities were flushed. They survived, literally, on the kindness of strangers. "We'd spend hours panhandling so we could eat, then we'd bum rides to my brother's garage so we could practice," reveals Steineckert, adding the lean times fortified friendships within the band and creativity flourished in tandem. There was only one obstacle.
The Used is a live band, and Orem and neighboring Provo, together comprising the most devout, closed-minded concentration of Mormons in the country, is far from a live music mecca. When The Used managed to land a gig at one of the scant venues, their show so rattled the club owners' dainty constitutions that they weren't invited back. "Everywhere we played, people wouldn't let us back and stuff because the way we play, I don't know...we kinda...I think it would frighten some people," Steineckert explains. "It's just us goin' off, and it's too much, the puke and the fuckin' blood and things like that."
Their live experience is indeed a visceral one. Every note, every scream and every leap carries the possibility of a laceration or a contusion, a lost shoe, a damaged instrument or worse: McCracken, who prowls the stage singing and screaming as if jockeying for an aneurysm, often drops chow. "Sometimes, there's no way in hell I can keep it down," he laughs. "I just love to scream in people's faces and sometimes it makes me puke."
He affectionately calls it Bertie's Madness, and while revolting at face value, there is no better example of The Used's ethic of giving everything to the music. Furthermore, it's an indicator that, whatever comes, they'll remain hungry and take nothing for granted.
"So here I am/ it's in my hands/ and I'll savor every moment of it" - "The Taste Of Ink"
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The Used Band Members:
Bert McCracken
Jeph Howard
Branden Steineckert
Quinn Allman
The Used Gets Their StartThe Used formed in Orem, Utah. Drummer Branden Steineckert was the person who got everyone together to make music. The area is known for its large Mormon population, not for its incredible punk rock scene, so The Used had a lot of trouble finding venues that would let them play. The Used's luck changed when they were signed to Reprise Records. The Used's hit songs include A Box Full of Sharp Objects, The Taste of Ink.
The Used - Did U Know?
Bert McCracken's parents kicked him out of the house because he rebelled against his Mormon upbringing.
Before being discovered by Reprise Records, The Used survived on the streets by pan-handling (begging) for change on the street.
Bert McCracken (a former drug user) says his bandmates were a big part of keeping him "clean and sober."
Lead singer Bert McCracken once dated Kelly Osbourne.
The band performed on the 2003 Warped Tour and played dates at Ozzfest 2003.
Bert McCracken sometimes screams so much while performing, he pukes on stage.
The Used Says..."We used to have a refrigerator that was always empty because all of our money went to barely being able to make rent. And now here we are living out of a bus and we're able to eat a couple meals a day. We've got a record in stores, and we're doing what we love for a living. It's unreal."
| Mon April 14, 2003 |
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| When the majors came calling on the band, its members had only been playing together as The Used for about eight months.
Each one - singer (and former Kelly Osbourne smoocher) Bert McCracken, bassist Jeph Howard, drummer Branden Steineckert and guitarist Quinn Allman - had played in other bands around the staunchly Mormon town, and even with each other in some acts.
McCracken and Steineckert grew up in Mormon families, who didn't much care for their sons' love of unholy music.
"[It] tended to cause some family problems because the thing to do is go serve a mission when you're 19 and we just weren't into it," the drummer told POLLSTAR.
So, at a young age, they left home to worship at the church of rock 'n' roll.
Eventually, with Orem being such a small town, the future members of The Used came together to form something new. The difference between the members' former bands and The Used was all in the approach.
"We were just like, 'All right, we can play in fuckin' Provo, Utah, all we want and we can keep playing shows here for the same 25 kids at the same little venues ... or we can take some time and write some songs and try to actually do something with this,'" Steineckert said. "And so that's what we did. And I don't know how, but we managed to be one of those fortunate few that a lot of people really took interest in."
Early on, Steineckert sent producer and Goldfinger frontman John Feldmann copies of the songs the boys were working on. Feldmann was impressed enough to ask the band to record some demos and do a short tour with his band.
Luckily for The Used, Feldmann tipped off his management company, Freeze Management, to the young band's chaotic live show and the company soon added the Oremites to its roster. The rest, as they say, is the rest.
"Suddenly, our management started submitting our demo to labels and everyone was taking interest and just, like, totally falling in love with it," Steineckert said while driving to Sally's Beauty Supply with some fans. "We were being flown all over, doing showcases and just being taken out.
"It felt overnight to us. We had been a band for eight months and here we were flying to New York City and in strip clubs because these rich record executives were throwing bills at the strippers and taking us out for a good time. It was fucking crazy." |
Artist
The Used
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| According to Freeze Management President John Reese, the interest was both immediate and unanimous.
"I've probably gotten 50 bands signed, and [The Used] is the only band I've ever shopped that nobody passed on," he said. "It could've turned into a gigantic bidding war, but we didn't want that."
The band eventually settled with Warner Bros. and its Reprise imprint because the label "saw their vision," Reese said.
In keeping with the band's wishes, "We didn't go for radio; we did everything the opposite of the way people try to put bands out these days," Reese said. "It was all through touring mainly. People saw them play live and they were moved."
In fact, even though KROQ's Lisa Warden heard the self-titled debut in June and immediately wanted to add it to the influential Los Angeles radio station's playlist, Reese said they held off until July to spin it because, "We wanted to get all our ducks in a row first."
Or, as Steineckert put it, "We wanted the kids to discover us on their own and not be one of those bands that MTV and radio shove down their throats until they're forced to like us."
Instead, the band hit the road, playing on the side stage of the Warped Tour, picking up the second half of Ozzfest, supporting on cross-country tours, heading to Europe, and eventually in launching a largely, if not completely, sold-out headlining club stint.
So what's on the plate for the boys? After their current headline trek, they play the MTV Campus Invasion Tour in late April, major radio festivals in May and then jump to the main stage at Warped with their name on the marquee.
And what a difference a year and 320,000 albums sold can make.
"Last year, we were doing [Warped] in a shared bus with two other bands," Steineckert recounted. "There were 21 of us on the bus and we had to wake up at, like, 7 o'clock every morning and unload all our gear from the diesels and unload all of our merch ... and then at the end of every day, we had to load it all back up. We had no crew at all.
"Now we're paying people to do that shit for us." |
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;)
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