COVER STORY: The Power and the Passion - The Rebirth of Sunny Day Real Estate
by Joe Ehrbar
(First appeared in the Rocket magazine, 8/26/98)
Once a year, sometimes twice, William Goldsmith makes a pilgrimage to Coney Island in New York to have his palm read by the same fortune teller and to ride the venerable Cyclone--the country's oldest operating roller coaster.
"I go on the Cyclone--which is the craziest roller coaster and the most frightening and dangerous roller coaster in the world--about three times," says the erstwhile Sunny Day Real Estate/Foo Fighters drummer. "It looks like you shouldn't ride on it and it feels like that way, too. I'm going to get it tattooed on my back."
In 1997, Goldsmith returned to the fortune teller for the fifth straight year to see what the future might hold for him. He had just got off the stomach-churning roller coaster that was the Foo Fighters and was pondering his future as a drummer.
Goldsmith had one thing in mind when he sat down to have his palm examined: Would Sunny Day Real Estate reunite? Just a couple years before, he had fought hard to quit the band and now he was having a change of heart. "I was wanting to get the band back together, I thought it would be cool," he says.
The palm reader saw a different future for Goldsmith, or so he thought. "She said, 'I see you working on something with two people.' And I was like, 'Are you sure it's not three?'" he asked, referring to his Sunny Day Real Estate mates, vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Enigk, guitarist/vocalist Dan Hoerner and bassist Nate Mendel. "She goes, 'No, it's two.' And I was like, 'It's got to be three.' Well, shit, I guess Sunny Day's not going to get back together again."
Disappointed, Goldsmith headed for the roller coaster.
Such predictions couldn't have been a surprise. Hoerner, with whom Goldsmith and Mendel founded the emo-rocking Sunny Day Real Estate in 1991, had fled the city for the rural serenity of Eastern Washington, and was now devoting all his energies to establishing a self-sufficient farm, so he and his wife, Dawson, could, quite literally, live off the land. Enigk, still in Seattle, appeared to be pursuing his faith--Christianity, the one thing said to have broken up Sunny Day Real Estate--and his career as a solo artist. And Mendel was off touring the world as bassist for the Foo Fighters.
Sunny Day Real Estate, it appeared, was never to be again. But little did Goldsmith know, the fortune teller would be dead-on in her assessment of his future, which left open the possibility of a Sunny Day Real Estate reunion.
Reassembly
Sometime after Goldsmith had returned from New York, he phoned Enigk about getting together to jam. Enigk was already considering a possible project with Hoerner. Meanwhile, band manager Greg Williamson and the band's label, Sub Pop, had a Sunny Day Real Estate odds-and-ends album on the stove. When the idea was presented to Enigk, he said he wanted to write new songs for the album. At which point talk turned to a temporary reunion.
And so last summer for the first time in more than two years, Goldsmith, Enigk, Hoerner and Mendel convened in a rehearsal space, all eager to see if the passionate flame that burned so brightly in their music was still radiating. For it was passion that truly stoked the fire beneath Sunny Day Real Estate. After practice (at which they played not a single old song), they abandoned the idea of putting together a posthumous collection. Rather, the four decided to re-open the Sunny Day Real Estate book and write a new chapter--a full-length album and a full-scale reunion.
Having gone from a twinkle in Seattle to a rising star on the national scene in 1994 with their fragilely volatile Sub Pop debut, Diary, to flaming out in 1995 just when full illumination seemed imminent, Sunny Day Real Estate in 1998 are reunited. At least three-quarters of the original lineup are--Mendel stuck with his higher-paying gig with the Foo Fighters. Jeff Palmer, formerly of San Francisco's Mommyheads, now handles bass and backing vocals.
When Sunny Day Real Estate dissolved, their reputation didn't evaporate with them. It's grown to the point that they've been mythologized, inside and outside the Northwest. ("For a band that hasn't played a show or hasn't been around for four years and never did interviews, it's a good thing," says Goldsmith.) If anything, as emocore continues to knock on the door of wider appeal, Sunny Day Real Estate have only gotten more popular. Their two albums, Diary and 1995's posthumous Sunny Day Real Estate (better known as the Pink Album because of its stark, pink cover), have sold a combined 160,000 copies. Even before they disbanded, they were in big demand. MTV salivated over the band. Commercial radio played their music. Variety TV shows like "The John Stewart Show" booked the band. Major labels swooned. All this and Sunny Day Real Estate hadn't even come into its own yet.
"Internal tensions of the band had reached a boiling point and we just needed to break up," explains Hoerner, by phone, at his farm. "It was the only thing that we could do to later on come back to it. Everybody was pretty much in-fighting.... We were young and stupid and pretty much overwhelmed with what was happening with Sunny Day, and egos and attitudes, that kind of thing just kind of tears you apart. It's the oldest story in the book."
Even with all they've accomplished, Sunny Day Real Estate aren't interested in the past. They are a new band, possessing a more sophisticated, realized sound, and they're poised to show the world, seemingly tired of anything with a guitar, that they've got something unique to offer. They're gearing up to release their most substantial, artistically ambitious album with How It Feels to Be Something On (due September 22 on Sub Pop). They're planning tours. For the first time in their history they're granting interviews. They just might even play shows as a full band in California (previously, they played California twice sans Hoerner).
Resignation
The one thing that launched Sunny Day Real Estate skyward is precisely the same thing that sent them plummeting to earth: passion. The band members are consumed by it, virtually flying by the seat of their emotions. Which is why Sunny Day Real Estate's music is so evocative, so turbulent. It's marked by unpredictable shifts in mood and extremes, riding a quaking fault line of human emotion--angst and release, pleasure and pain, love and hate, anger and happiness. Extremes.
"Nobody in the band is a ho-hum," says Goldsmith, who, along with Enigk, sits on the patio of a quiet Seattle cafe, sipping a cappuccino on a scorching hot day. "It makes it difficult with all these people in the band who are such extremists."
As you might have inferred from Goldsmith's words, Sunny Day Real Estate fought...a lot. It's what happens when four equally passionate people are crammed into one room, even the same living quarters (most of them have lived with one another at some point). Reason goes out the window. Hence, the band's most valued asset was a source of great conflict. Their inter-band squabbles worsened as the pressures escorting their rising stature increased. In 1994, with tensions mounting, coupled with the immaturity and the intolerance that comes with being young, Sunny Day Real Estate, while they were practically in their infancy, were splintering. What crumbled them was Enigk's conversion and immersion into Christianity.
"Anytime you ask Jeremy, he'll always tell you that he was the one who broke up Sunny Day," says Hoerner. "But I'll tell you what, we would have broke up either way."
"I was the one who actually vocalized it," clarifies Enigk, sporting a fresh buzz-cut.
"Jeremy definitely had that kind of spiritual occurrence in his life," continues Hoerner. "But you know what? As long as I've known him, he's been a Christian in one form or another. "He's always been a very spiritual, passionate guy. I have always been completely pro Jeremy's faith, because I think that he's a very passionate guy, you know, a true believer. It doesn't matter that nobody else in Sunny Day is a Christian, or even particularly religious. It matters that there's passion there, that Jeremy, the singer, is totally on fire with what he's talking about, whether it be about God or any other issue. I think there's this commonalty among people to be really lukewarm about stuff, to be kind of laidback and accepting of your place or your role in society. Jeremy is not like that."
But, explains Hoerner, "There was some anger and some negative reactions to his Christianity, from other people in the band. That wasn't really what drove Jeremy away from Sunny Day at the time. I think it was just the whole negative energy of Sunny Day."
As a unit, Sunny Day Real Estate shared a gift, but little else. After months of constant temper flare-ups ("I don't throw my snare drum at practice anymore," says Goldsmith) and fighting, the four musicians wanted nothing more to do with one another, even with commercial success looming on the horizon.
Says Enigk of the band's performances at the time: "There was no emotion, no passion."
"There was passion," Goldsmith counters. "There was hatred, there was anger."
Though the band had decided its fate, it remained together long enough to fulfill a couple contractual agreements--a new album and one final U.S. tour. Somewhat relieved to know that it would all be over soon, but also itching to get away from each other, Enigk, Hoerner, Goldsmith and Mendel entered the studio to record the cryptic and sullen Pink Album, a darker record than Diary, frothing with irrepressible tension. But the album didn't quite bookend the band's brief career, as it sounded incomplete and unresolved.
"There's a darkness to the Pink record, there's a mood there that I really love," Hoerner admits. "Knowing what it was like to do it, I can sense the tension and the undercurrent there. I think it makes for a really interesting album. I actually hated the recording process, because my creativity was extremely stifled... I pretty much went in there, laid it down and got out."
In March of 1995, having finished the recording of the Pink Album, Sunny Day Real Estate came to a halt.
Reassess
Almost immediately following the breakup, Goldsmith and Mendel were courted by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl to join his new band, the Foo Fighters. Upon joining they were quickly whisked off to tour and sprung into the disconcerting realm of rock stardom, which was a new experience for them. It was a move that would sour Goldsmith's love of music.
Hoerner and Enigk stayed in contact and within a few months of Sunny Day's demise, they got together and jammed. The fruits of their spontaneous collaboration bore a song called "Two Promises," which now finds its way onto Sunny Day Real Estate's new album, How It Feels to Be Something On. They were so thrilled by the song, Hoerner says, that they were determined to reassemble the band.
"We got together and we were like, 'This is stupid, we got to get those guys out of the Foo Fighters,'" recalls Hoerner. "'We got to do this thing.' We tried to retrieve the fellas from where they went, but they were stuck. They were like, 'No way are we coming back to Sunny Day when we got this cash cow.'"
With Goldsmith and Mendel committed to the Foo Fighters, Hoerner, not interested in starting up a new project, packed up his guitar and belongings and headed to Eastern Washington with his wife. He was done with music for the time being. Enigk also moved on, but he stuck with music, writing, composing and arranging a magnificently orchestrated, encapsulating solo album called Return of the Frog Queen, released in 1996 on Sub Pop.
While the Foo Fighters were enjoying commercial success of their self-titled debut album, thanks to the jocular Mentos-spoof video for "Big Me" ("Footos: the Fresh Fighter"), Goldsmith wasn't having much fun. The band's maniacal touring schedule proved physically taxing--he developed carpal tunnel syndrome. "Hitting things with sticks night after night...and those songs, I always had to be balls-to-the-wall," says Goldsmith, taking a drag from a cigarette. "I hurt myself."
Touring also had strange effects on his mind. "When I was in Italy, I was pissed off because my hands were ripped to shit," he says. "Then I met a leper. She didn't have any feet, yet she was still walking.... I was floored, I started crying. I gave her all my money--350 bucks, all the money I had for tour. Those were surreal times. I couldn't sleep the night before. I'd been on the road way too long, and you run into a leper. That's when you're just like, 'Things have gotten too weird. Time to go home.'"
By the time it came for the Foo Fighters to record their second album, The Colour and the Shape, in the fall of 1996, Goldsmith was caving to the pressure of being the drummer in a band whose frontman happened to rank among rock's most heralded drummers. After a marathon session at Seattle's Bear Creek, the record was thought to have been completed in January 1997. But then Grohl and the band, except Goldsmith, checked into an L.A. studio and re-recorded most of the album with Grohl behind the kit. After the The Colour... was finished, Goldsmith quit the Foo Fighters.
In many ways, Goldsmith would rather forget about the two years he played for the Foo Fighters. "That doesn't have too much to do with [Sunny Day Real Estate], I think," Goldsmith says, abruptly, shifting in his seat. "If you want a flat-out, straight-up answer, yes, [the experience was awful]. But I don't want to sit here and talk shit. It's not something I really want to discuss in interviews, because I don't want to deal with the repercussions. I would probably be opening up a shitty fuckin' door in a lot of different ways."
But it's significant to Sunny Day Real Estate in that it made him appreciate the music they made and the freedom in which they did it. After jamming with some Olympia musicians, "I was actually itching to play with [Enigk] again," says Goldsmith, whose history with the vocalist/guitarist reaches back as far as high school, and who introduced Enigk to Sunny Day Real Estate.
Reacquaint
"I like this band better than I've ever liked it before. I really love the music better than I've ever loved it. I think we have more now than we've ever had to offer."
That's Hoerner gushing about Sunny Day Real Estate's reunion. But it's a sentiment shared by all. No matter what their differences were in the past, there was still something undeniable--chemistry--and they knew it the moment they started playing again.
"When you're young and you got a group of friends and shit gets started and it doesn't get worked out," says Hoerner. "And you don't know how to work it out. And you kind of just let it boil and brew and stew. You fight and hatred becomes developed. When you're older and you're more removed from the situation, you realize that what was lacking was understanding and wisdom and common sense and also common courtesy. We were young."
Now that Sunny Day Real Estate are reunited, they're conscientious about not falling into the same traps again, which means keeping the communication lines open, respecting one another's opinions and lifestyle choices and encouraging personal, honest expression. Now when they have disagreements--like over the concept of their new album's cover--they solve them by flipping coins.
"The one thing we don't argue over is songs," says Goldsmith.
----The writing process for the band's new album went smoothly. "For me, a lot of the stuff doesn't seem consciously written," says Goldsmith. "It just comes together."
----"We definitely have a lock," Enigk directs to Goldsmith. "It's easy. If I have a guitar line, William automatically knows [the drum part] without saying [the drum part]."
"The key is to not think too much or hesitate, just let the song write itself," the drummer explains. "If you start thinking too much or beating yourself into the ground or trying to come up with the ultimate thing--just come up with the right thing. Think of the song, rather than try to prove anything."
Was that always his frame of mind?
"That was always my frame of mind with our band," he says. "I was always conscious about that. I was really conscious about being creative. But it wasn't ever forced. Where it was like with the Foo Fighters trying to write new songs, this guy [Grohl] would write a song and he'd be like, 'Come up with a drum part and I bet I have a better one in my mind already.' Where with Sunny Day, I am given any and all freedom to do whatever the fuck I want. It's a great thing to be set free and allowed to be yourself and encouraged to be yourself."
While everything seemed to be falling into place, there was one problem: Mendel's absence. Although the bassist had told band members he would make Sunny Day Real Estate his full-time pursuit and the Foo Fighters his part-time gig, the Foo Fighters continued to be his priority. Yet, they waited for Mendel until seven days before they were to go into the studio, which is when Goldsmith informed him that he was out of the band.
"We waited and waited and waited for Nate for so many months," says Hoerner. "Finally we were like, 'Nate, you gotta cut yourself loose.' And he couldn't do it; he couldn't walk away."
"I think Nate had made the Vulcan kind of decision [by not leaving the Foo Fighters]," says Enigk, of Mendel's choice to remain with the Foo Fighters. "I think he kind of believed that it could happen again. He kind of made a logical, worldly decision, rather than the emotional, inspired decision."
With only a week before the band was to record How It Feels, Sunny Day Real Estate had no bass player, and unless they found one fast, Hoerner and Enigk would have to play the bass parts. As fate would have it, while the band's manager was in San Francisco recording a band, he was introduced to Jeff Palmer, former bassist of the Mommyheads. Days later, Palmer was in Seattle, and to everyone's surprise he had not only assimilated into Sunny Day Real Estate's sound, he had already written the bass parts for each of the album's 10 songs. "It was the most amazing occurrence in the history of Sunny Day Real Estate," says Hoerner. "Because Jeff is so amazing, he's so perfectly the fourth member of Sunny Day Real Estate. He not only completes it but takes it to a new level."
Redefine
If there's an album Sunny Day Real Estate seemed destined to make, it's How It Feels to Be Something On. With its epic movements, it sounds so meticulously arranged, yet instinctually exacted. It travels a more scenic trajectory than the band's first two albums. Where Diary's and Pink's songs seemed impatient, shifting from swelling tension straight for the dramatic climax, How It Feels is more exploratory, comparatively more subtle. It takes its time, unfolding as it should, and, therefore, revealing more facets, more hues to the band than ever before.
For Goldsmith, personally, How It Feels was an important record to make. "That record was a lot of stuff built up," he admits. "It was a lot of things that I had needed to get out."
As a unit, Sunny Day Real Estate have never sounded this lush, this dynamic, this tight. Perhaps the time apart accounted for some much-needed growth. Perhaps the time together inspired them to rise to a higher level. Hoerner's sprawling, ponderous guitar melodies rain down from the stratosphere ("I've been really inspired by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan"); Goldsmith's drumming is adventurous and complicated ("It's not complicated," says Goldsmith); Palmer's busy bass work not only anchors the band, it also yields gorgeous melodies. Because of all this, Enigk's astral, goose-bump-rendering tenor can soar freely into the heavens. Simply, his vocal display is spectacular. Hard to believe that two years ago, the singer blew out his voice after quitting smoking (he smokes now, but his falsetto hasn't returned).
"It was improv," Enigk says of his work on the album. "I had no idea what to do on a lot of the songs. It's just one of those points in your life again--it's like life kind of happens in blocks. It was another end of a block, an end of the line type of thing. It was so very passionate. It just happened to happen when we were in the studio. It was excellent timing. It was very painful. I wanted to go in there and I wanted to sing, not for recording but to get it out."
"If there's one thing I love, it's to go overboard," he says later. "I love to go big, bigger, bigger, the biggest smash you down building," he says emphatically, gritting his teeth and pounding his fist on the table. "I'm sort of an..."
"An extremist," smiles Goldsmith.
"Yeah," Enigk says. "It's like Queen. It's just over the fuckin' top. I think that we're kind of over the top. It's pretty dramatic."
Reignition
In July, Sunny Day Real Estate unveiled their new album at two inaugural concerts, in Seattle at the Moore Theatre and in New York City at Irving Plaza. To the band's surprise, both shows sold out in a hurry. In Seattle, fans not fast enough to buy tickets stood outside the Moore, offering as much as $50 for a golden ticket. Inside, the band took the stage to a hero's welcome before a hometown crowd of 1,300, about twice as big as any show the band had played in its first incarnation. Stunned by the reception, they paused briefly, glancing around the room and acknowledging the applause before immersing themselves into their hour-long set.
"It's weird. It's flattering. It's cool. It's what I've wanted from a band--to be respected," says Goldsmith. "And I think we got a lot of that."
Even though the band didn't indulge the crowd with older material until the encore ("In Circles" and "J'Nuh"), the audience was politely receptive to the new songs.
"We were scared, too, because we had to go out in front of this crowd of people who really loved us and play an entirely new record for them," says Hoerner. "That was very scary, because you don't want to disappoint, you don't want to make anyone feel ripped off, but at the same time, we're a new band. We felt as though we needed to show that there was a new record there, it wasn't just a greatest hits parade--not that we've had any hits."
Six days later in New York, a throng of kids (several hundred strong) lined up in front of Irving Plaza at 10am for an 8pm show. "The response in New York was incredible," says Hoerner. "When we finally got around to playing 'In Circles,' from being onstage and next to the monitors and not being able to hear Jeremy's voice over the voice of the crowd was a first-time experience. It was so shocking, and gratifying."
As expected some show-goers expressed disappointment in the band for not playing more past songs. "We didn't get away with it," says Goldsmith. "There were some complaints.... We realized in New York, that that wasn't enough, that maybe we should learn old songs."
Resolution
After the triumphant New York concert, while the rest of the band flew home, Goldsmith stayed behind. He had some personal business to attend to. He returned to Coney Island, to pay his fortune teller another visit. On his mind most likely were these questions: Would Sunny Day Real Estate manage to keep it together, stay together and prosper together? Or, would they start fighting again and break up? Whatever future the palm reader saw for him this time, Goldsmith won't divulge. "I'm not supposed to say," he says. Judging from his facial expression and bright eyes, it's obviously not bad news.
"Did she blow your mind again?" Enigk asks.
"Yeah," Goldsmith replies. "She blew my mind."
© 1998 Joe Ehrbar