| Mazzy Star | |
|---|---|
David Roback and Hope Sandoval Photo: © Laura Levine |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Santa Monica, California, US |
| Genres | Alternative rock, dream pop, psychedelic rock, acoustic, ambient, shoegazing |
| Years active | 1989–1997 2000 2010–present |
| Labels | Rhymes Of An Hour (current) Rough Trade, Capitol (former) |
| Associated acts | Opal, Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions |
| Members | |
| Hope Sandoval (vocals) David Roback (guitar) William Cooper (violin, keyboards) Jill Emery (bass) Suki Ewers (keyboard) Keith Mitchell (skins) |
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Mazzy Star is an American alternative rock band formed in Santa Monica, California, in 1989 from the group Opal, a collaboration of guitarist David Roback and bassist Kendra Smith. Roback's friend Hope Sandoval became the group's vocalist when Smith left the band.[1]
Mazzy Star is probably best known for the song "Fade into You" which brought the band some success in the mid 1990s and was the group's biggest mainstream hit, earning extensive exposure on MTV, VH1, and radio airplay. Roback and Sandoval are the creative center of the band, with Sandoval as lyricist and Roback as composer of the majority of the band's material.
Contents |
Mazzy Star have deep roots within the Californian Paisley Underground movement of the early 1980s. David Roback, along with his brother Steven, was one of the main architects of leading Los Angeles psychedelic revival band, the Rain Parade.[1][2] Leaving that band after their first LP, he founded Clay Allison in 1983 with then-girlfriend, ex-Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith.[1][3] Soon after the publication of their sole release, the 1983 double A-sided single "Fell From the Sun"/"All Souls", Clay Allison renamed themselves Opal and released the LP Happy Nightmare Baby on Rough Trade on December 14, 1987.[3] With Roback as its musical catalyst, Opal were a direct precursor to Mazzy Star musically — often featuring the same psychedelic guitar drones and similar hints of blues and folk that would later appear on Mazzy Star recordings. Meanwhile, Sandoval – who was in high school at the time – formed the folk music duo Going Home in the early 1980s with fellow student Sylvia Gomez.[3] Both were devoted followers of the Rain Parade, and after a 1983 concert by the band in the Los Angeles area, Gomez entered the backstage area of the venue and gave Roback a copy of Going Home's demo tape, featuring Sandoval on vocals and Gomez on guitar.[3] Upon hearing the tape, Roback offered to produce a still-unreleased album by the pair.[1][3]
When Smith left Opal under cloudy circumstances in the middle of a tour supporting The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sandoval was tapped as her replacement. The band continued on as Opal for the next two years, changing their name to Mazzy Star shortly before the release of their first LP.[3] Roback initially conceived of the band's name as the singular idiom Mazzy, the title of an unreleased instrumental piece he had written several years previously. Sandoval suggested coupling it with the word Star, as starlight - along with numerous metaphors and various allusions to distant light - had been a recurring theme of her poetry since adolescence.[4]
Much of the material found on the band's debut album originates from Opal's planned second album, titled Ghost Highway. Written over a year before Mazzy Star's inception, the track "Ghost Highway" is the group's only original song to not feature a writing credit from Sandoval,[5] while another song found on the album, "Give You My Lovin'", was written by Going Home guitarist Sylvia Gomez[6] and first recorded in demo form by them in 1987. She Hangs Brightly was released in 1990 on Rough Trade and although it was not an immediate commercial success, the album did establish the duo as a recurrent fixture on alternative rock radio, with lead single "Blue Flower" - a cover of the Slapp Happy track - peaking at #29 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.[7]
The American branch of Rough Trade folded in late 1990, briefly leaving Mazzy Star without a record label. Within weeks, the duo's contract was picked up by Capitol, who re-released She Hangs Brightly on November 4, 1990,[8] and released their follow-up, So Tonight That I Might See on September 27, 1993.[9] A year after its release, the album yielded an unexpected hit single. "Fade Into You" peaked at #44 to become their first Billboard Hot 100 single, while also reaching a career-high peak of #3 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart.[10] On April 19, 1995, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA for shipments in excess of 1 million units and for over sixteen years remained Capitol's last platinum-certified album in the U.S.[11] The album also peaked at #68 in the U.K.,[12] and as of November 2001 had sold over 40,000 copies there.[13] Following the success of "Fade Into You", She Hangs Brightly album opener "Halah" began to receive heavy airplay in the U.S. and peaked at #19 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart, a position based solely on airplay.[7] In 1995, She Hangs Brightly was awarded a gold certification from the RIAA for shipments in excess of 500,000 units.[11]
Their final album for Capitol, Among My Swan, was released on October 29, 1996.[14] Entering the Billboard 200 at #68[15] and, as of September 2001, selling 214,000 copies in the United States,[16] the album was less commercially successful than its predecessors, although it did produce their highest-peaking single in the United Kingdom, when "Flowers In December" entered at #40 to become their only top forty entry on the chart.[12] The band promoted the album with a five-month tour of the U.S. and Europe, after which Sandoval reportedly "begged" Capitol to be released from her contract,[17] later recounting, "It seemed record companies wanted bands to be creative because they didn't know how to manufacture underground music. We could do our own thing and go at our own pace. But that changed when major labels started wanting bands that would sell 7 million records. They had a formula. And suddenly all these people wanted to come to the studio to keep track of what we were doing and make sure we were following that formula. So we got out."[3]
In the immediate aftermath of Mazzy Star's dissolution, Sandoval, who had appeared on The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1994 release Stoned & Dethroned, made another guest appearance on their final record Munki, and also collaborated with The Chemical Brothers, while Roback produced and mixed two songs found on Beth Orton's 1999 album Central Reservation.
In June 2000, the band reunited for a mini-tour of Europe. Performing up to seven new songs at each of these concerts,[18] Sandoval revealed in interviews around this time that these new songs were written and recorded for Mazzy Star's fourth studio album, which was to be released independently sometime in the future. This did not materialize, however, as later that year, Sandoval joined with Colm Ó Cíosóig (formerly of My Bloody Valentine) to form Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions. In October 2000, Sandoval issued her first EP with The Warm Inventions, At the Doorway Again, and followed it up with her debut full-length album, Bavarian Fruit Bread, a year later. Around this time, Sandoval also contributed vocals to several songs by other artists, notably Air and Death In Vegas.
Sandoval performed as part of Bert Jansch's 60th birthday celebration at Queen Elizabeth Hall on November 3, 2003. As well as Ó Cíosóig, Jansch and his son Adam, she was also joined on stage by David Roback for renditions of "Suzanne" and "All This Remains," a song Sandoval had contributed lead vocals and wrote lyrics to for Jansch's 2002 album Edge Of A Dream. This remains Sandoval and Roback's final appearance together on-stage.[19]
David Roback made his debut appearance as an actor in the 2004 film Clean. He also wrote and produced three songs that were performed in the film by actress Maggie Cheung.
In 2009, So Tonight That I Might See album track "Into Dust" debuted at #71 on the U.K. singles chart[20] when it featured on a commercial for Virgin Media.[21] Two years later, the song appeared on the "Dust to Dust" trailer for Gears of War 3 and spent a further four weeks on the chart, reaching a new peak of #47;[20] while it also became the band's first song to ever place on the Irish Singles Chart, where it peaked at #40.[22]
Sandoval's second album with The Warm Inventions, Through the Devil Softly, was released via Nettwerk on September 29, 2009 and was followed on August 10, 2010 by a non-album single, a cover of Syd Barrett's "Golden Hair." Also released in 2010 was her vocal contribution to Massive Attack's Heligoland, "Paradise Circus." The song spent several weeks on the U.K. singles chart, peaking at #117 on downloads.[23]
The first substantive confirmation that the duo would reconvene to complete work on their fourth studio album came from Sandoval herself in a July 2009 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, where she was quoted as saying, "It's true we're still together. We're almost finished [with the record]. But I have no idea what that means."[24] Later, in a September 2009 interview with Vancouver-based music website Straight.com, interviewer John Lucas wrote of the 8-year gap between Bavarian Fruit Bread and Through the Devil Softly, "That seems like a long time until you consider that Mazzy Star, Sandoval's partnership with guitarist David Roback, hasn't put an album out since 1996. Sandoval promises that will change; she and Roback have their very own Chinese Democracy in the works, but it won't see the light of day until The Warm Inventions have wrapped up their tour."[25]
On October 12, 2011, Hope Sandoval's official website confirmed the duo would release their first new material in fifteen years later that same month. New single "Common Burn" - backed with b-side "Lay Myself Down" - was released digitally on October 31, 2011. A limited edition coloured vinyl was also announced for release on November 8,[26] though a delay in manufacturing has pushed its release back to February 2012.[27] Their fourth studio album is expected to be released in the latter half of 2012, following completion of a tour earlier in the year.[28][29]
The first confirmed dates of the band's 2012 tour are the festivals Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain on May 30,[30] Field Day in London on June 2,[31] a solo act show at London's O2 Shepard's Bush Empire on July 3[32] and the Portuguese festival Optimus Alive! on July 15.[33]
Hope Sandoval was born in 1966 and grew up in a Catholic Mexican-American family in East Los Angeles, California. She attended Mark Keppel High School. In 1986, she formed the folk music duo Going Home with Sylvia Gomez, and recorded one album produced by David Roback, which is yet to be released.[34]
Besides vocals, Sandoval plays acoustic guitar, harmonica, Hammond organ, percussion, glockenspiel and xylophone. During live performances, Sandoval prefers to sing in near-darkness with only a dim backlight, playing the tambourine, harmonica, glockenspiel or shaker.[35] She is reputed to have a shy personality, and rarely interacts with the audience,[36] once stating "I just get really nervous. Once you're onstage, you're expected to perform. I don't do that. I always feel awkward about just standing there and not speaking to the audience, but it's difficult for me."[4]
In Mazzy Star, Roback plays guitar, keyboard, and piano. He wrote almost all music for Mazzy Star, and he has also produced all their recordings.
Roback grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, graduating from Palisades High School in 1975. He started a band called Rain Parade with his brother Steven. They first hit the scene in 1982 as part of a loose aggregate of psychedelic 1960s-influenced guitar bands in Los Angeles, and they were in the forefront of that movement which lasted a couple of years.
After Rain Parade's first album and tours, Roback left the band. He then became involved with ex-Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith and formed a new band called Clay Allison in 1983. The recordings from the summer this year remained unreleased until the 1989 release of Opal Early Recordings.
After Clay Allison's 1984 tour, the band decided to go with a name change, and went from Clay Allison to Opal, whose sound was defined by Roback's spare, distorted guitar work and Smith's vocals. They released the Northern Line EP in 1985. SST Records signed Opal and released their album Happy Nightmare Baby on December 14, 1987. During the Opal tour in December 1987, Smith left the band. She was replaced by Sandoval, and they toured Europe through early 1988. Roback and Sandoval had an intimate relationship at this time and after Opal was disbanded, they took the remaining members of Opal and changed their name to Mazzy Star.
Since 2001, Roback has permanently resided in Norway.
The other contributors to Mazzy Star include: