You think you know the Spin Doctors. Think again. When the legendary New
York quartet release If The River Was Whiskey on May 14th through Ruf
Records, casual fans will discover the secret past the hardcore have never
forgotten. To the wider world, the Doctors might be the multi-million-selling
icons behind hits like Two Princes and Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong, not to
mention the classic Pocket Full Of Kryptonite. But in 2013, Chris Barron
(vocals), Aaron Comess (drums), Eric Schenkman (guitar) and Mark White
(bass) are reconnecting with the flat-broke twenty-somethings who scraped
for dollars at the sharp end of the Big Apple blues circuit. The Spin Doctors
have come full-circle.
“We were four guys in our twenties,” remembers Aaron of early days
in the late-’80s, “and our goal was to write our own songs and make a living
doing it. The blues is such a big part of our roots, but one of the reasons we
came up with such a big catalogue of blues songs back then is that we’d play
these downtown blues bars in New York. You were supposed to play blues
covers… but we were actually playing our own songs!”
We all know what happened next: the hits, the hysteria, the fame and
the money (“When were selling 50,000 records a week,” remembers Chris of
the band’s explosion circa 1992, “I’d walk into a mall to buy underwear and
300 kids would surround me!”). If The River Was Whiskey hits rewind. It’s the
deep-blues album the Spin Doctors almost made before megastardom came
knocking. It finally bottles those near-mythical songs from that sweatbox
circuit. It’s simultaneously a tipped hat to the band’s lost past and the freshest
record you’ll hear all year. “Every note feels dangerous,” smiles Chris. “It’s
just like this ramshackle, broken carriage running down a cobblestone hill,
with pots and pans, and a screaming baby…”
The concept to revisit these songs struck as the Spin Doctors toured
Europe to toast the 20th anniversary of Pocket Full Of Kryptonite, and polled
über-fans David Landsburger and Daniel Heinze on what they’d like to hear
as the encore that night. Their answer – So Bad – was a song so old that Chris
had almost forgotten the verses, but when the venue exploded, a lightbulb lit
over the band’s heads. “We had such a good time playing these tunes,” the
singer explains, “that we thought, ‘We should go make a record of this stuff’.
It’s really brought us back as a band, musically and interpersonally.”
The songs on If The River Was Whiskey are different vintages. “Some
Other Man Instead and the title track, I wrote those lyrics in the last year or
two,” explains Chris. “But Sweetest Portion, I wrote that song when I was 19.
I’d run away from home, and when I got back, my friends were really upset
and there was a rumour going around that I had died. So I wrote that song –
and I’m not sure if I’ve ever written a better one since.”
The material might be a quarter-century in the making, but If The River
Was Whiskey took just three days to record when the four members convened
last summer in New York. The original plan was to get together at Aaron’s
His House Studios in Manhattan and work up some demos – no pressure –
before heading upstate to a boutique analogue facility and start tracking in
earnest. “We didn’t expect to make a record,” smiles Eric. “We were just
going to make a demo and play at the Rockwood. And then, lo and behold…”
Instead, without the pressure of the red light, the sessions began to
unfold with an effortless magic. “We just kinda winged it, man,”says Mark.
This album sounds exactly the same as it does onstage, because we recorded
it live, which is the way it should be done. There’s no overdubs. Anybody
that tried to do an overdub was gonna get whacked!”
“We really kinda fooled ourselves and tricked ourselves, and I think
that’s one of the reasons why it sounds so fresh,” picks up Aaron. “Because
there was absolutely no pressure on us of any kind. We just hit a moment.
Everything came together and we got this great record. Usually, the best
things happen when you’re not trying… and that’s what happened here.”
The band quickly realized the supposed rough-cuts captured by
engineering ace Roman Klun couldn’t be topped. “By the third day,” reflects
Chris, “we’d recorded all ten of the demos. We went out to dinner that night,
we were all having a cocktail, and someone was like, ‘Gentlemen, I believe
our demo is a record’. And we all just laughed.”
Take a spin of If The River Was Whiskey and you’d have to agree: they
aced it. The Spin Doctors might have given you the soundtrack to the best
nights of the ’90s, but with this new album, they’ve rediscovered a strand of
their musical DNA that melds perfectly with the hits you know and love. “It’s
been so refreshing to go back to this material,” says Aaron. “It’s just brought
everything that’s good about the band out again. I can honestly say that we’re
playing better than ever right now, and I think a lot of that is because of the
material on this record: it’s just really opened things up. Some bands, you go
and see them 25 years later and they’re up there going through the motions.
But to me, we sound better than ever. We sound world-class now, I think.”
“We play about four or five tunes a night from this new album and
they all work,” says Eric. “It just feels seamless, like any of the new tunes can
sit with any one of the Kryptonite songs. And the band is just playing amazing
now. It’s a pleasure to play with people that you’ve been playing with so
long… and everybody’s still breathing!”
Likewise, when If The River Was Whiskey arrives on May 14th it’ll be a
pleasure to toast the return of the Spin Doctors, and a new album set to score
new fans while making the hardcore love them more than ever. “I don’t care
about sales, man,” states Chris, honestly. “I mean, it’d be awesome if it sold
millions of copies, but honest to God, I just want to keep making a living
playing music. We get up onstage and we turn it on, and sing and play our
hearts out. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do: just make real music, give
people something from my heart.”
This is a rain or shine event. All sales are final.