Steve Elkins ~ drums
Matthew Kelly ~ voice, guitar
Frankie Koroshec ~ guitar
Dustin Morgan ~ bass
Jamie Seyberth ~ engineer
Ken Tighe ~ guitar
An old friend of The Autumns used to end his phone calls, ""The Autumns are an empire."" Imperial pretensions aside, the band's endurance, coupled with the growth of its audience, truly are remarkable. As the LA Weekly recently observed: ""Trends may come and go, but the Autumns' staying power and ever-increasing visibility suggest that a solid sound and strong resolve beat out a slick, hastily produced project any day."" When they say ""staying power,"" they're not kidding. Like any good story, this one starts a long, long time ago.
Back in 1992, high schoolers Frankie Koroshec and Matthew Kelly began swapping records and exchanging notes on their musical idols. Most prominent among them were the Manchester lot: The Smiths; Trashcan Sinatras; Stone Roses, etc. As aspiring guitarists, Koroshec and Kelly would spend hours untangling Johnny Marr's impossible webs of jangling genius. Soon enough, they found themselves in a large category of would-be Marr protégés -- a classification only Bernard Butler seems to have escaped. Indeed, Suede too would play a seminal role in forging the Autumns' musical mindset.
As with many American youths, college proved a Pandora's box of musical exposure for Koroshec, Kelly, and their fellow band-mates. Among others, the Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine were thrown generously into the mix. By 1997, The Autumns had drawn their various influences together to create a unique and identifiable sound -- one that drew an eclectic mod-to-goth spectrum of twenty-somethings out to LA nightclubs by the hundreds. That year, the budding and ill-fated indie Risk Records signed the group, releasing an EP (Suicide at Strell Park) and full-length album (The Angel Pool). Both were warmly received. Flipside deemed The Angel Pool a ""hypnotic pop masterpiece"" and CMJ called the band ""an enlightening unit that knows its past but pushes toward the future."" The record eventually generated waves big enough to roll across the Atlantic and brush a figure critical in the band's own development: Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde.
Raymonde heard demos the band had tracked with producer Andy Metcalfe (Squeeze, Soft Boys) and notified Risk of his interest. Naturally, the label had little trouble persuading the band to work with Raymonde. Kelly quickly headed to London, where the two relaxed on the terrace of September Sound, sipping red wine over a moonlit Thames and talking into the morning hours. Kelly recalls, ""It was one of those moments where you become so convinced that you're dreaming, you actually sadden at the realization that you're about to wake up."" But the dream persisted. Within a few months, the whole band returned to London to begin work on In the Russet Gold of This Vain Hour, the Autumns' second LP. Things were looking quite good. Upon its release, the album hung at the upper end of the college radio charts for weeks on end. LA's premier ""alternative"" rock station, KROQ, interviewed the band. The LA Times ran a cover story on them in the Pop Music section (The Autumns were the big picture, Beck and Prince were off to the side somewhere). Even MTV got into the act, turning up at the Troubadour to film an Autumns show. Then, without warning, Risk Records collapsed, and with it went Russet Gold.
""Honestly,"" reflects Koroshec, ""it was for the best. That level of attention made us uncomfortable. And it wasn't the record to blow up. We were still searching and experimenting."" The Autumns would continue to experiment over the coming years. In 2001, they released a four-song, twelve-minute recording of '50s-inspired love songs on pink vinyl (Le Carillon). At around the same time, they issued a limited edition three-inch disc of cover songs (Covers). Both quickly became scarce, and were received with the usual esteem. Splendid E-Zine considered Le Carillon ""as refined as Brian Wilson."" Pitchfork described Covers as ""impressive and inventive"" and Hybrid regarded it as simply ""superb!"" Meanwhile, Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Angela Shelton hired the band to score her movie, Searching for Angela Shelton. The film went on to garner wide praise, taking numerous festival prizes and appearing on 48 Hours, Oprah, and the Lifetime network.
When not scoring films or playing shows, the members spent their time hunkered down in engineer Jamie Seyberth's (Teenage Fanclub, Beachwood Sparks, The Sugarplastic) studio, patiently sculpting an ambitious new full-length. Years after work on it began, the self-titled album was released to considerably broad acclaim in 2004. The overseas press found it particularly appetizing. In a four-star review, MOJO gushed: The Autumns are masters of structure and dynamics… unutterably beautiful but also hugely powerful."" The Times of London felt likewise, stating in a second 4-star review: ""This album has such majestic chutzpah that the epic gene in you will simply surrender.""
And so they go. With the plaudits stacking up sky high and yet another wave of converts arriving at their shores, the Autumns continue to carry the flag of musical independence with a credibility few artists can match.
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