Much much more than
power pop punk band.
The first time I heard about Portland's The Exploding Hearts I was leading a pretty mundane life in Long Island. A short mention in the Long Island Press citing their only full-length Guitar Romantic as the best a writer had heard all year got my attention. Still, I'd have to wait over a year to get a hold of that record. Was the year long wait worthy? Hell no, I wish I had headed to the record store right away. The recently released compilation Shattered once again puts this underrated power pop punk band on the spotlight. Too bad the band isn't here with us anymore. Insider Fred Landeen was close to the band, his insight and experience with The Exploding Hearts is evident in this tale about his relationship with the band. Read on.
Despite my best efforts, I nearly missed the first Exploding Hearts show.
When Adam Cox told that he was starting a Power Pop band, I told him to let me know when they were going to play. I had bumped into him on a bus going into downtown, and he told me all about his new band. He dropped a reference to Nick Lowe, and I was intrigued. Not too many folks were talking about playing Power Pop at the time, so it was exciting to hear that there was going to be a local band trying it. I made sure that he had my phone number and email address so that he could keep me posted. He never called.
I got the call from Amanda Kill, on a rainy weeknight. She was calling from the Satyricon nightclub, trying to get me to come down to see a band. “These guys look like they are gonna be good” she exhorted. When she described their look , lot’s of white denim and pink neckerchiefs, I realized just who it was that she was talking about. Twenty minutes later, I was at the club, standing up front for the debut of The Exploding Hearts.
I was a fan before the first song was over, it was impossible not to be! They had so many hooks, so much melody and still retained a rocking Punk edge to it all. This was ideal Power Pop, they had exactly what I wanted from the genre. Instantly memorable songs, with the catchiest possible hooks. There were choruses that stuck in your head as soon as you heard them and never left. Keeping it all going was a driving guitar that supplied the power to the Amphetamine pop. By the end of their set I had a new favorite local band.
Terry Six was the secret weapon of the band. He could play the sweetest melodic guitar lines, and then bust out with a lead that actually rocked, giving the tunes the punch that they needed. Terry was the most affable member of the band in person, always quick with a smile and handshake.
I knew Adam “Baby” Cox from his playing in a Pop-Punk band made up of a bunch of obnoxious high school kids from Beaverton. He had also done stints with the hilariously offensive Spider Babies and the stripper-fronted Coco Cobra and the Killers. I used to see him at Automatics shows, and we had struck up a friendship around talking music. He was always really enthusiastic about music, when he would talk about it his eyes would open up really why and he’d have the biggest smile on his face. I was surprised at how good of a singer had become, not to mention the songwriting!
Jeremy “Kid Killer” Gage played with Adam in high school and toured with the Spider Babies, but I knew him from his time with the ultra lo-fi Silver Kings and Punk geniuses The Bedpands. He was a kid that I had always seen around with his skateboard in one hand, a 40 ouncer in the other and a sly grin on his face. He was usually in the middle of saying something smart-assed.
I had seen Jeremy and Adam at shows for years. I had always thought that they were brothers because they hung out together all the time and sort of looked alike. I remember being genuinely surprised when I found out that they weren’t related. Jim “Action” Evans, who was at least a decade older than the other guys, was the bass player during this time. He had also served time in Spider Babies as well as being a veteran of the high-octane Garage Rock band Screamin’ Furys. Jim was the polite stoic who played well but said little.
This was the first line-up to play around town, the same line-up that recorded what is now referred to as the Pink Demo. They gave me a copy of their demo early in December of 2001. The CD face was spray painted pink, with Exploding Hearts stenciled across it. Mine was hand numbered, number eight of one hundred. Four stunning originals, and a pleasing rough (and very hi hat heavy) cover of the (Paul Collins) Beat song “Walking Out On Love”.
The group had a distinct aesthetic, which they unfailingly adhered to. It seems like it was Adam who decided most of this. He designed all of the band’s graphics, and owned many of the clothes that the band members wore for photos and live. Anytime you see a photon of one of the band members wearing a Boys First Time t-shirt, that was actually Adam’s. It even went so far as Adam being the person who cut Terry’s hair! The boys had a great style, though. Nobody else at the time was rocking pink and yellow together, with white denim as a recurring fashion motif. They definitely influenced people around them, as well as their fans elsewhere.
Two songs were chosen from the demo to appear on what was supposed to be the Hearts’ debut single on Pelado Records. I say supposed to because the label kept pushing back the release date, until it finally came out in January of 2003. Ultimately, their first recordings became their third record! The single was beat to the shelves by the Guitar Romantic LP on Germany’s Screaming Apple Records, and the “(Making Teenage Faces”) single on Vinyl Warning. The late released caused some confusion among fans, many thought the the 7” version of “Modern Kicks” was the newer version. I remember Adam making fun of how slow it was compared to the LP version by singing the chorus for me in mock slow motion, yet many people prefer this recording of the song. The slower speed definitely allows more of the melodic subtleties to be hear. “Busy signals” was the b-side. A real gem from the demo is the song “So Bored”, which has often mistakenly been titled “Waste of Time” by fans who have the traded the tune via the internet.
Over the course of the winter, the Hearts played some fun shows, built a following, and had some line-up changes. The first change was to add New Orleans transplant, “King Louie” Bankston on keyboards. King Louis, known for playing in savagely raw Garage bands like The Persuaders and the Royal Pendletons was a great addition to the band. He not only made it possible to have the keyboards played live, he also sang back-up vocals and lent credibility to a band of musicians that people in the rest of the country hadn’t ever heard of. The pairing of Louie and Adam proved to be quite productive, as they immediately began collaborating on songwriting. One of the band’s most memorable Pop anthems, “I’m a Pretender”, was originally brought in by Louie.
The second personnel change was more of a reinstatement. Matt “Matt Lock” Fitzgerald was actually the original bass player for the band, but had left well before the band played their first show. Another friend from their high school days in Beaverton, Matt fit back into the band perfectly. Popped collars, 80’s sunglasses, a Crime t-shirt (that he seemed to always wear) and the cool confidence to go with them. Sure Matt played really well, but almost as importantly, he looked really good doing so.
The Exploding Hearts took their time recording their LP over the course of the spring, 2002. Producer and friend of he band Pat Kearns recorded the album at his small (and now legendary) Studio 13, located in the basement of a house in Southwest Portland. They has time to try different things, and some alternate takes and versions of songs from these sessions are surface in the compilation Shattered. The LP Guitar Romantic is of course, one of the all time classic Power Pop albums. It was praised widely and wildly from the second it was released. Bomp!, Maximunrocknroll, and a variety of other press called it the best album of the year. Jessica “Jessicat” Troutman, one of the band’s closest and most loyal friends, provided vocals on the duet “Thorns in Roses”. (She is also quite likely the hottest Sunday school teacher in the world…)
Upon deciding that the relatively low humidity of the Pacific Northwest wasn’t for him, Louie left the band to return to the South. The Hearts didn’t seek out a replacement for the vacancy (if you have met Louie, you know that he is irreplaceable). There was talk of Louie continuing to contribute to the songwriting, although I don’t know if this ever had the chance to happen.
The summer of 2002 found the band back in the studio with Pat Kearns, this time at the much fancier digs of Jackpot Studios. Here they recorded four original songs and a cover of “Sniffin’ Glue” by FU2. If you’ve never seen the cover art for the Italian pressing of the FU2 LP, do yourself a favor and track it down, it’s pretty crazy! The Hearts’ version has plenty of snottiness oozing out from it. The song was one of the brightest spots on the “Dirtnap Across The Northwest” CD compilation.
I was honored when the Hearts asked me to release a single by them on my fledging record label, Vinyl Warning. I went over to talk about the 7” with Terry and Adam at their apartment, which was known as the Pink Palace. I knew that I was at the right house when I saw a tire swing out front that had been spray painted pink. Thir place was super tiny, on the second floor of a house in Southeast Portland (2021 SE 12th, if you want to make this pilgrimage.). There was always a pile of skateboards cluttering up the base of the narrow staircase. Once upstairs, there were just two small bedrooms, separated by a puny little kitchen. No living room. It was in the pink kitchen that the cover photos for Guitar Romantic were taken. When I came by, the title of the album was still spray painted on the wall behind the refrigerator! We hung out in Adam’s room, listening to the Flip-Tops albums and lots and lots of The Supremes. Adam’e beloved dog Bluto was there too, of course, staring up at us with his enormous, comically bulging eyes while frantically humping Terry’s raised arm.
For the single, I was quick to request “(Making) Teenage Faces”, a live favorite that to me is a perfect, perfect song. The hooks here are unstoppable and the chorus instantly unforgettable. The lyrics still make me laugh every time that I listen to it! I had to beg the band to record “Your Shadow”, a song that they had stopped playing. (This band threw away better songs than most bands will ever write.) They had performed when they played live on the radio show that I co-host, back in December 2001. I had listened to the recording of their set over and over, and this song stood out to me. It’s definitely the fastest, most straightforward Punk song that the band ever recorded! The original version had Terry playing all his leads through a wah-wah pedal. He didn’t use it on the studio recording because by the time they got to record it, poverty had forced him to sell the pedal.
The last two songs recorded by The Exploding Hearts from the Jackpot sessions were earmarked for a 7” on the mighty Dirtnap Records. The b-side was to be “We don’t Have to Worry Anymore”, a fantastic song that would have been perfect on the soundtrack of a summer teen exploitation movie. This was on of the Heart’s many strengths, being able to make a (really, kinda sappy) line like “forget about me in the summer…” sound poignant, and then turn around and blast into the charmingly irreverent lines like “it’s our summertime, and we’re getting WASTED!/It’s our summertime, and we’re getting sto-o-ned” without it losing any momentum.
For the A-side, the band chose what is arguably one of their best songs, the heart-wrenching “(You Left Me) Shattered”. Tasteful use of cowbell, and Jeremy’s Clash-like falsetto back-ups compliment Terry’s twangy leads. This, of all their songs, is the one where you can hear the most sincere heartbreak in Adam’s voice, for that reason, it’s the most moving to me, and often the most difficult for me to listen to. For various reasons, the release date of this 7’ kept getting bumped back, further and further. Eventually, it was set to be released in the fall of 2003, after it was remixed. Sadly, this single never got to happen.
Over the next several months the world began to take more and more notice of our homegrown taent. The buzz on the band was increasing, for sure. Several magazines and websites did interviews with the band and their records continued to receive praise from the international press. The folks at Harvard took an interest, and in May of 2003, they flew the boys out to Boston to play what would become their only East Coast dates. Several bigger labels were sniffing around at this point, including some majors. June saw them play an amazing show with The Buzzcocks at Berbati’s Pan, in Portland. It stands out as one of the best times that I saw them, they were at their height of live energy. The gig offers were getting bigger and more frequent. I was happy for their success, but I was wondering if I’d ever see them play in a basement or dive bar again.
Not everything was roses, however. Jeremy kept quitting the band, and surprisingly the search for a replacement proved to be quite difficult. Inevitably, Jeremy would rejoin, or agree to fill in for a show, coming to the rescue again and again. This drama played itself out several times over the first half of 2003. In the end, I believe that he planned on staying in the band, as he took part in a photo shoot and joined them for a set of gigs in the Bay Area.
The band was received like returning heroes in San Francisco. Their set at The Bottom of the Hill was videotaped and if you have the CD versin of this release, you can see the energy and excitement of the crowd in the footage. While in the Bay, they were courted by (then) Pop Punk heavy hitters Lookout! Records. The band decided to jump onto a bill at Thee Parkside before heading back home. The future seemed to hold very bright things for The Exploding Hearts.
There is no way to adequately describe the shock of hearing that the three of your friends have just died. I just can’t put into words how much that hurt, and continues to hurt to this day. This is the news that I awoke to with a phone call on the morning of July 20th, 2003. While driving overnight to get back home from their trip to San Francisco, the band had a horrific accident. Adam, age 23, Jeremy, barely 21, and Matt, still only 20 had all died. Theye were an hour and a half from home, and now they were gone. Terry and the Hearts’ manager, Ratch Ramos survived the accident with what the newspaper described as ‘minor injuries’. I guess the were only taking the physical injuries into account.
The loss of the band was a terrible one to the music world, but it pales in comparison to the personal loss. These boys were sons, brothers, boyfriends, and dear friends. I miss their band, but never anywhere near as much as I miss the guys themselves.
Portland hosted a packed memorial for all three of the fallen Hearts. People came up and spoke about each of the boys for several hours until we had to leave the church that was hosting the event. Benefit concerts were staged in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco to help the families with the funeral expenses. Message boards filled up with a huge outpouring of grief and sympathies for he boys and their families. The Hearts’ music had spread further than we knew, as messages came from all over the world.
During their time as a band, I referred to The Exploding Hearts as “the best band in the country”, a statement that I stand behind to this day. They remain one of my all time favorite bands. They hadn’t attained stardom in the mainstream world yet, but they made a tremendous impression on the underground scenes. They continue to win new fans the world over. Their music lives on, and we cal all be grateful for every amazing song that we have from them. The Hearts have attained a very well-deserved immortality through their music. As a fiend and a devoted fan, I will cherish their music and the memories associated wit them forever. Thank you.
by Fred Landeen
