What’s going on my fellow rock n’ rollers. Don’t forget to hit the bell notification icon to be
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box below. Veruca Salt was a band seemed to have success overnight, but just as fast as they rose,
they quickly crashed and burned. This is the story of whatever happened to Veruca Sal
The band got their name from a character from the 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
Veruca Salt was formed in 1992 after Louise Post and Nina Gordon met through
a mutual friend and hit it off and they started writing music together.
.The pair began playing chicago area coffee houses and had their eye on expanding to an all-female
quartet. The pair had put an ad in a local chicago newspaper looking for a female rhythm section,
but Post and Gordon would closer to home enlisting Gordon’s brother Jim Shaprio would
become Veruca Salt’s drummer and his friend Steve Lack would become the band's bassist. Meanwhile,
Post and Gordon would share guitar and vocal duties. The addition of a rhythm section created
the band’s trademark alternative rock sound. Full of teen rage- Veruca salt blended the sound
of My Bloody Valentine and The Pixies. The band would play only a handful of shows before being
noticed by indie label Minty Fresh Records who signed the band. Minty Fresh had previously
signed Liz Phair and a handful of other acts. That’s not to say that major labels weren’t
lining up to sign the band, in fact many major labels showed interest early on in the group,
but Veruca Salt opted to go with an Indie label first as there was a buyout clause in
the contract and they felt more comfortable with the scale of what they were doing.
Prior to being signed Veruca Salt had already recorded a 4 song demo but their demo didn’t
include the hit song ‘Seether’ that would become their first big hit Regardless Minty
Fresh Records, which was basically ran by a 30 year old guy named Jim Powers out of his
Chicago apartment, loved the sound of the band and offered to pay to have the band record a single.
That single would turn into Seether/All Hail Me. Since Minty Fresh Records, was a tiny label,
Powers was more in favor of first recording singles instead of full albums with bands he
was interested in signing. In addition to that Powers had to wheel and deal and that he did.
Prior to signing Veruca Salt, he made a deal with local producer Brad Wood who was short on cash and
owned his own studio. Wood had previously worked with alternative rock acts liz phair and sunny day
real estate. Powers paid Wood money upfront so he could come back later and either record 7 singles
or 14 songs in the future with any future band he signed. Wood had envisioned that Powers would
bring 7 different bands to record singles in his studio, but since the Seether/All Hail Me single
was such a big hit within Chicago and on college campuses, Powers came back and asked Wood use the
remainder of his credits just to record Veruca Salt's debut album American Thighs. By the end of
1994, Minty Fresh would sign a distribution deal with Geffen Records, who would re-release their
debut album and give it the boost and marketing power it needed to get national exposure. The
single Seether/All Hail Me would shoot up the rock charts peaking at number 8 and garnered
a lot of play on MTV. The band also got a prime spot opening up for Hole on tour. And American
Thighs would go gold selling over 500,000 copies. While the album would receive generally favourable
reviews, not everyone was a fan. Some critics would slam the band for being just another
group riding the coattails of Nirvana and compared Veruca Salt to the alternative rock
group The Breeders who were led by women. As the band’s profile grew, in 1996 they
hooked up with Nirvana producer Steve Albini to record a stop gap 4 song EP titled blow it
out your ass it’s Vercua Salt. Here's Nina and Louise from Veruca Salt talking to MTV
about why they recorded an EP that they didn't really care if it was successful or not. You know
i wanted to ask you about that. Well i think we tried to diffuse the pressure of having to
follow it up following it up with a big single for our new EP blow it out your ass it's Veruca Salt
um really just so we wouldn't feel the pressure. We wanted to put something without a big single
without a big video just for our fans and so that we had something to just tide ourselves over
and just to put something out just to be a band without all the hype yeah and all
of the craziness around it. Yeah, i thought that was a good decision.
The same year also appeared in the band Pavement’s video for the song Painted Soldiers.
The band would release their full length follow up in 1997 titled Eight Arms to Hold You. The
album was produced by metallica and motley crue veteran bob rock. Nina Gordon discussed
the band’s ambition with their second EP telling the chicago tribune “We wanted to be huge," "We
wanted to sound huge. We wanted our boots to be huge. And we wanted a really polished sound.
We wanted lots of harmonies, lots of overdubs. So we went to Maui and lived in this palace,
like this incredible house with tennis courts and a pool and whatever. We made
a record in a way that nobody makes records anymore except for maybe Jay Z and Beyonce."
Veruca Salt once again had another success on their hands led in part by the single Volcano
Girls. The album would go gold and while the band had a lot to celebrate, things would quickly fall
apart. The internal strife within the band started to take a hold with Post and Gordon
having differences with one another. While Post and Gordon have kept quiet about what caused the
tension between the two of them, they would claim it had nothing to do with music. Post would tell
the Chicago Tribune "Nina and I had a defining fight fallout that we just couldn't get past,"
"And that was that. And that's very private." As tensions between Post and Gordon boiled over,
the band also lost drummer Jim Shapiro who only learned drums around the time he joined the band.
He would claim to the tribune that he wasn’t happy with learning drums in public and all the scrutiny
that came along with it. In addition to that he wanted to contribute more creatively to the band
as he was proficient in other instruments as well. Not helping things was that Post was going through
tough times with her then boyfriend Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters. As the band looked
to start work on their 3rd record, Post and Gordon couldn’t work with each other
and Gordon left the band in 1998 to focus on a solo career. Post would take a two year break
before soldering on with a new version Veruca Salt, where she was the only original member.
In 2000, Post released her first album with a new lineup of Veruca Salt titled Resolver. And while
it wouldn’t match the success of the band’s first two records it was cathartic for Post none the
less. And Post would continue releasing new albums and touring under the Veruca Salt moniker until
2012 when they announced an indefinite hiatus. Between 1998 and 2012 Post and Gordon didn’t
see each other once, but they would eventually resolve their differences.
The pair could thank technology for reigniting their friendship as Gordon would tell the tribune
"Over the years there were a couple of occasions where we had to talk for sort
of business-y type reasons, and then, I guess with the advent of email around the turn of the
century" — — "we would just send the occasional friendly email like on each other's birthdays.
Post would add "There were like big apologies made during that time via email," And then that kind of
turned into just saying hello here and there." There was also another band who inspired the
women to put aside their differences. It would be the 90's group Mazzy Star who in the 2000’s
and more specifically their performance at coachella in 2012, that got Gordon and Post
interested in revisiting playing music together. Eventually the four original members of the band
would meet at a restaurant and offer round table apologies to one another and decided to reform.
Everything came full circle as the band reunited in 2013 would go back to Minty
Fresh Records to release a new single with their old producer Brad Wood. The
reunited lineup would release their first album together in 18 years with 2015’s ghost notes.
And the album was received warmly by critics. The band has been active in recent years
campaigning for various political causes and as recently as 2018 it was revealed that Veruca Salt
were one of many bands who apparently lost their master recordings in the 2008 universal studios
fire. That does it for today's video guys. Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button and
subscribe and we'll see you again tomorrow on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.