URGE OVERKILL
The Chicago-based Urge Overkill have somehow managed to mock the alternative music scene, while at the same time embracing it. Known for their rock star excesses (they've been spotted driving around Chicago in a convertible, flamboyantly sipping martinis), the band has built a career based on the credo: "Image is everything."
Core members Nash Kato (Nathan Katruud) and Eddie "King" Roeser, two kids from the Chicago suburbs, formed Urge Overkill in 1985. With Jack Watt on drums, they released their first EP, Strange, I..., the following year. Kato's roommate and alternative music mentor, Steve Albini, produced their debut EP and a follow-up album, Jesus Urge Superstar. But both releases got lost in the wave of noise-rock bands coming out of the Chicago underground scene in the late '80s.
It wasn't until Urge's third album, The SuperSonic Storybook, (1991) that the band broke into the national arena. New drummer Blackie Onassis (nee Johnny Rowan) added a more-defined, funky rhythm to their sound and a rock star image that the others soon embraced. Favorable critical reviews and a warm-up gig on Nirvana's Nevermind tour helped bolster album sales and garner the attention of alternative rock stations.
Stull, their 1992 EP release, contained two songs that further boosted their national recognition "Goodbye to Guyville" inspired the highly acclaimed debut album of fellow Chicagoan Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville. And the cover of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" became a mega-hit for the band when Quentin Tarantino included the song in a key scene from his 1995 movie, Pulp Fiction.

In 1993 the band jilted their indie label, Touch & Go Records, to sign with Geffen. This move alienated much of their alternative rock following including Albini, who attacked the band publicly for their affected rock star antics and for turning their backs on their indie roots. Their first Geffen release, Saturation, produced the MTV hit, "Sister Havana," but failed to create the sales Geffen was expecting.
1995's Exit the Dragon was greeted with mixed reviews and a fall tour disintegrated shortly after warm-up act Guided By Voices was abruptly dropped from the lineup. Later that year, Onassis was arrested for heroin possession. In 1996 Roeser left the band after a fallout with Kato and was replaced by guitarist Nils St. Cyr. The new line-up signed a deal with 550 Music, but with the label rejecting Kato's new material the band split-up to concentrate on their own projects. In April 2000, Kato released Debutante for Stone Gossard's Loosegroove Records.

*back