World Entertainment War - History

History

In 1986, George Earth and Anthony Guess together conceived the unnamed band that would later become World Entertainment War. Earth played lead guitar and co-wrote songs with drummer Guess. They invited both bassist Daniel Vee Lewis and keyboardist David Hannibal, with whom they had recently been jamming, to play with the new group, which still remained nameless. Rick Walker of Tao Chemical, Guess's drum teacher, suggested they contact another local musician friend of his, Rob Brezsny, also of Tao Chemical, who was simultaneously developing a new and broad idea that he called "World Entertainment War". The band went to see Brezsny perform a spoken-word-to-tape show with Brezsny using a backing tape, called World Entertainment War, that he had recorded in Echo Park, California with fellow Tao Chemical member Michael Haumesser. They did a jam show together a few weeks later and Brezsny joined the band as lead vocalist and co-songwriter.

In 1986, the five, Earth, Guess, Lewis, Hannibal, and Brezsny, became World Entertainment War; adopting Brezsny's nascent concept and name. They practiced and performed regularly, keeping one song, Prayer Wars, from Brezsny and Haumesser's original recording in their repertoire. They recorded an album of their earliest work, called Telepathics Anonymous.

Singer Darby Gould was recruited to join the band as co-lead vocalist six months later, by Brezsny, having heard her performing at UC Santa Cruz with a band called Ricardo's Bandoleros. As recalled by Gould in a 2006 interview, during the summer she graduated college, 1986, Brezsny heard her sing Janis Joplin and Whitney Houston songs, sitting in with a cover band called The Same, at a garage after-party following a softball game. According to Gould, The Same had previously opened for the band Brezsny sang for at the time, Tao Chemical. Gould also stated in the interview, of her audition for World Entertainment War, "I had never done original songs before. The bass-player and drummer sold me. I never sung a note at my audition and was offered the job." Keyboardist Hannibal left the band shortly and was replaced briefly by Sam Loya, who was then replaced by Amy Excolere.

They began playing live shows and eventually sold out most of their shows in larger clubs in the Santa Cruz and San Francisco bay areas. They recorded their first independent record, an eight-song vinyl album entitled Televisionary, which they recorded at Sonic West Studios in San Jose, California, producing 1000 copies, and released in 1989 on Infomania Records in Santa Cruz. That album climbed to number 15 in the Independent College Radio Charts in 1989.

As they were finishing the first album's recording and continuing to tour, they received a message in Vancouver, from Sandy Pearlman, who had managed Black Sabbath and produced albums for The Clash and Blue Öyster Cult, among others, and who wanted to sign the band. Shortly after that, they played at San Francisco’s Club Kommotion, where they were approached by Pearlman. Pearlman had purchased San Francisco's punk and new wave music label, 415 Records, changed the name of the label to Popular Metaphysics, and formed a co-branding alliance with MCA Records. Al Teller had been president of Columbia Records when the 415 Records partnership began and by 1989 he was president of MCA; making a partnership between Popular Metaphysics and MCA a logical choice. He convinced MCA to sign the band, and vowed to make them famous.

Within a year, a recording contract was forged and with MCA's backing, World Entertainment War recorded their self-titled debut album at Pearlman's Alpha Omega Studios in Studio C of the Hyde Street Studios in San Francisco, as was specified in their MCA contract. Backing vocals were performed by Jonnie Axtell, Atom Ellis, Eugene "Bud" Harris, and Paul K. Johnson, II. Additional background vocals were provided by members of the diverse and loosely-knit team of occultists (Pagans, Druids, Ceremonialists, Goddess worshippers, and Faery-Folk) whose expertise Brezsny had recruited, and among whose often glaring doctrinal differences Brezsny had made peace, resulting in collaborative and highly theatrical rituals that became a signature of the band's iconoclastic live performances. "Imagine instead a pagan revival meeting mixed with a dance therapy session and a cynics' pep rally and a tribal hoedown and a lecture at the "Anarchists Just Wanna Have Fun" Think Tank". Mark Senasac engineered, mixed, and produced, with Ulrich Wild also engineering, and Stephen Marcussen did the mastering. In 1991 the self-titled debut CD was released on Popular Metaphysics, and distributed by MCA Records. Brezsny’s daughter, Zoe, was born on the same day the album was released.

Rock promoter Bill Graham saw the band perform at San Francisco's Paradise Lounge and soon became their manager. According to Brezsny, “He started coming on really strong to us: He told me that he’d never been this excited about a band since 1969...” Graham told the band’s members in no uncertain terms that he was going to make them “the Grateful Dead of the ’90s”. However, MCA had difficulty with both categorizing the eclectic band’s sound and deciding on a single, and they mismanaged the album's promotion in the early weeks following its release. Graham was determined though, and began working with David Geffen to secure opening slots for the band with R.E.M. and Midnight Oil. Their album was nominated for a 1991 Bammie Award, California's version of the Grammies.

In October 1991, however, shortly after their album release, Graham was killed in a helicopter crash while returning home from a Huey Lewis show. Remaining promoters at Bill Graham Presents were unable to properly promote the band and the album languished. Brezsny moved to Marin and Earth moved to San Francisco as the band's enthusiasm drifted to other projects. Excolere quit the band in 1992. Remaining members continued doing live performances as World Entertainment War in a variety of venues until the group disbanded in 1993. Gould had begun singing with Jefferson Starship, after Paul Kantner heard her sing at a World Entertainment War show and recruited her to replace Grace Slick. Brezsny wanted to do more writing and they decided to split. During one of their final performances, on Jan. 8, 1993 at San Francisco's Digital Be-In, one of Brezsny's heroes, Timothy Leary, joined them onstage and sang with the band.

Their third album, Give Too Much, contained some of the same recordings and two other tracks recorded at the same time. Some songs were re-recorded at Norm Kerner's Brilliant Studios in San Francisco, where one of George Earth's later bands, Switchblade Symphony, would also record. The album was released later by Brezsny, after purchasing back the masters from Pearlman, who had secured half of the publishing rights to their songs under the MCA contract.