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By Penelope Biver photo by Jerod Herzog
ime flies - especially if you mark time by elevens , and years , and releases from your favorite rock band – at least if that band is Urge Overkill . Some may feel it ' s been a long time ( 2011 ) since their last release Rock & Roll Submarine ; others may say it feels like yesterday . It may certainly sound like yesterday when you listen to their new album Oui - out now on Omnivore Recordings . Some people might feel that " time " as a forward-moving construct is suspect , especially after living with the inertia caused by a pandemic that is three years in the making . And while some believe time and progress are interwoven , if you ' re Nash Kato and Eddie " King " Roeser , progress can present itself as the proverbial double-edged sword .
" When any recording from the past is available digitally within seconds , you have less of a sense that what ' s happening in the present is really important ," said Roeser . " It used to be more of an idea that things were moving forward . Now everybody has access to everything that has ever happened . And I think there ' s less of an urgency or sense that passing of time is that important ."
While the band began its career churning out records almost annually , the change of schedule to once a decade might be frustrating , for fans at least . But what about the band ? Why not three , five , or seven years in between records instead of 10 ?
' It did not take 10 years to create Oui by
22 illinoisentertainer . com march 2022 any stretch ," said Kato . " Back in the day you had a weekend or a week in the studio to crank out an album , and these days it ' s ProTools - everything ' s digital . It was something we started chipping away at ."
" I think we were pretty relaxed about the releasing of this record and we weren ' t on any sort of schedule , because what does it matter ?" Roeser mused . " I didn ' t realize how many records were coming out , but while we ' re promoting this record it ' s like , ' you got in the Top 10 of this website - but there were 45 songs introduced on this website just today .' So it ' s a mindboggling amount [ of music ]. I think there ' s a definite clogging of the airwaves . Not only that , but it changes the way one thinks about the present . When I see my son , there ' s so much other interesting stuff he can be involved in - he ' s got games , he can hang out with his friends without being physically present , there ' s so much else to fill your head . I sort of feel - and I know Nash agrees , we did live in a Golden Age for music , occupying a more central place in the cultural brain , if you will ."
Urge Overkill ( essentially now the duo of Kato and Roeser ) has been a torchbearer of indie rock for Chicago - by definition independent of any carved-out genre – " occupying the cultural brain " for over 35 years . Their nascent days as an eager college band signed to Chicago-based label Touch & Go found them making a lot of deliberate noise at requisite volume with the help of Steve Albini on
1989 ' s Jesus Urge Superstar , and a year later on the Butch Vig-produced Americruiser . Their major-label debut Saturation , produced by the Butcher Bros . ( Cypress Hill , Nine Inch Nails , Anthrax ) remains to this day a fan and critic favorite , standing the test of time ( time stands still when the moment is right ), along with their Neil Diamond cover " Girl , You ' ll Be a Woman Soon " which was memorialized on the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino ' s 1994 film Pulp Fiction , both worldwide hits which brought Urge Overkill along for the ride .
Unfortunately their follow-up LP Exit The Dragon didn ' t continue the momentum as all involved had hoped it would . Then some bad juju began to drag the band down - drugs , arrests , fights amongst band members ( as well as with other bands ) were ultimately the death of that iteration of Urge Overkill . By the end of 1996 , tensions between Kato and Roeser were too much , so Roeser left the band . Kato and drummer Blackie Onassis continued as a duo and jumped ship from DGC to 550 Music in 1997 . But even with new guitarist Nils St . Cyr and a new label home , the fire couldn ' t be rekindled , so UO officially disbanded .
Kato released a solo debut in early 2000 ; then the band ( this time minus Onassis ) reunited for a worldwide tour in 2004 . But it wasn ' t until 2010 that Kato and Roeser decided to return to the recording studio to write again . ( Could having the honor of being invited to play at Quentin Tarantino ' s Friar ' s Club roast in December of that year have anything to do with their renewed inspiration ? Rubbing elbows with the likes of Samuel L . Jackson , John Travolta , Uma Thurman , Patricia Arquette , Sarah Silverman , and over 2,200 other Hollywood successes ? Who knows . " It was surreal ," said Kato .) In May of 2011 , " UO 3.0 ," which included Kato and Roeser along with ex-Polvo drummer Bonn Quast and ex-Gaza Strippers bassist Mike " Hadji " Hodgkiss , released its first record in 16 years , Rock & Roll Submarine .
While that record was called a " rousing comeback " for sticking to their old school , scabrous approach to recording , it should be no surprise , then , that the new album Oui continues where Submarine left off since many of the new songs came from those recording sessions . For Kato and Roeser , the adage " If it ain ' t broke don ' t fix it " seems increasingly apropos . Or in this case , maybe just fix it a little …
" I don ' t think we would have released the record if we didn ' t feel like there was an inner logic that was calling it to be released ," said Roeser . " It took some alteration , and choosing not to use some songs that we really like , and fixing some songs that weren ' t as good as what you can do digitally now . If you have something that ' s at 90 percent and you ' ve heard it one way a million times , but then you take a step back , like a couple of years back , you can step [ back ] into a song and make it a
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