Tonic would rise out of the ashes of grunge music, which was mostly on it’s way out by the
time the group showed up on most people’s radar by the mid 90’s. Tonic's 1996 debut
album Lemon Parade would be the career high for the group going platinum and producing
several big singles including “If you could only see.” But whatever happened to the band?
That’s what we’re going to explore in today’s video.
Made up of members including vocalist and guitarist Emerson Hart,
lead guitarist Jeff Russo, bassist Dan Lavery and drummer Kevin Shepard,
Tonic fought against critics their whole career who levied two charges against them.
1) was that they were too influenced by 70’s rock and 2) since they formed in LA they were image
conscious. The band would answer these charges with guitarist Jeff Russo telling the LA Times
“We just focus on writing the best possible songs and then go on stage and give as much
of ourselves to the audience as we can,”We don’t think in terms of alternative rock or
guitar rock . . . or how many CDs can we sell. “We just have to be ourselves, and so far,
enough people seem to like who we are--or at least what we play. It’s too bad that some
bands have to get arrested or look like Marilyn Manson to attract attention. That’s just not us.
The band’s origins dated back to New Jersey where Russo and Hart
first met while attending the same high school - red bank catholic high. Emerson Hart’s mother
worked for a local television station while father was a pretty talented singer
who suffered from schizophrenia and vanished mysteriously in 1980. Hart suspects his
father was possibly murdered, a subject he would discuss on one of his solo records years later. .
Both musicians would head out west to Los Angeles at separate times and would run into
each other years later in 1991 at Canter’s Deli. The establishment would hold “jam nights” iwhere
bands like the Wallflowers and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash would be seen from time to time.
The pair soon started jamming together, and writing songs, which got the attention of
EMI Music who signed the pair to a publishing deal. Soon afterwards, they added bassist Dan
Rothchild and drummer kevin Shepard. Tonic would be born in 1993. According to MTV Hart
named the the group "tonic" after the first note of any major or minor scale in musical theory.
Tonic became regulars for almost half a year at the LA club The Mint,
where they got the attention of Polydor Records who signed them on Halloween in 1994 backstage
at the club. It was during this time the members were working day jobs to support
their music with Russo worked as a chef at a restaurant while Hart was a manager at a
pool hall and worked at Fender, building guitars while Rothchild worked as a structural engineer.
They all hated their day jobs, so getting signed was a God-send to them.
The band enlisted producer Joseph Puig
who had previously worked with Weezer and No Doubt to work on their debut album.
Puig would get a chance to see the band perform the material they had written in a live setting
during one of their regular shows at the Mint. From that point, as Hart remembers, Puig helped
them to hone in on the distortion heavy sound that they were going to capture on their debut album.
While Tonic wrapped up recording of LemonParade in 1995, their label let it sit for almost an
year. Polydor told the group to go out on the road in order hone their live chops.
With Hart telling Diffuser “We were on the road for almost a year before our record came out,.
The label was like, ‘Get in a van, go do crappy gigs for a year and become good artists.’
Because labels used to do that! So by the time, ‘Open Up Your Eyes’ [was released] -- that went
to the radio in ‘96 and that was our first No. 1 at rock radio -- we were already in shape."
Lemon Parade was by no means an instant seller, but rather a slow burn. According to the VP of
marketing at Polydor, he would tell billboard “sales always stuck between 1500 to 2400 pieces
week in week out. There weren’t any markets we could acknowledge as breakouts & though we were
pumping money into markets such as St. Louis, Minneapolis & LA we didn’t see any results.”The
first two singles released from Lemon Parade would be Open Up Your eyes and casual affair,
both of which peaked at number 2 and 8 on the mainstream rock tracks chart.
For reference the mainstream rock tracks chart looks at the most played songs on
rock stations that play both new rock music in addition to classic rock songs.
The turning point for Lemon Parade wouldn’t happen until the third single from the album “If you
could only see. Which according to billboard broke through on modern rock radio” The VP Of
Marketing at Polydor would tell Billboard “we’ve been supporting the album in marketplaces with
various tools and priced the album aggressively at $10.98, but it took off with this track getting
spins at modern rock radio. There was a huge reaction and sales started to jump” they’d say.
Tonic also found success because they were filling a void in rock n’ roll with their
guitar driven music with one radio station in Texas KFRQ telling Billboard “being a
somewhat conservative rock station we like to give our listeners new music , but there
just are not as many artists with this sort of guitar driven sound" they'd say.
Now apart from pushing singles at rock and top 40 radio,
MTV and box usa started heavily playing If You Could Only See
and the label started pushing the band’s music in touring markets putting up flyers, and as
well as hiring local marketing agencies to hand out cassette tapes to high schoolers.
Apart from the label who put a lot of money behind the band’s first release,
the internet which was still in it’s infancy also proved to be a useful tool
for promoting lemon parade. Through the band's website they offered fans the latest news,
in addition to an exclusive recording and personally responding to e-mail messages.
At the end of the day Tonic Parade would sell over 1.3 million copies in the states and if you could
only see topped mainstream rock tracks charts and peaked at number 11 on the top 40 charts.
Lemon Parade’s success was surprising given another obstacle the band faced. Around the
time of the album's release Polydor was absorbed by Universal Records with Hart
telling the Morning Call newspaper .We went through five product managers and
many different radio promotion people,' 'It's amazing that we sold as many records as we did.
Now that we're on Universal, it's such a different world.'
By late 1996 and 1997 Tonic underwent several lineup changes
with Dan Lavery replacing Rothchild on bass in December of 1996, and drummer Kevin Shepard quit
the band due to personal and family reasons. The band also found time to contribute several
songs to multiple movie soundtracks including Scream 2, and the X-Files movie. In addition
to that in early 1999 the band issued a 4 song ep exclusively through their website.
When it came time to recording the band’s full length follow up, Tonic ran into some trouble.
Frontman Emerson Hart suffered from writers block that lasted for at least half a year a year,
but it would be God who changed his outlook telling MTV
"I was sitting in my den in Los Angeles, and I was looking around, and I looked up
at the sky and said, 'Why do you have to be so mean to me?' " "Ask and you shall receive,
man" he would say.(RealAudio excerpt of interview). The band wanted to work
with Puig but he was unavailable so the band self produced their second LP titled Sugar.
Ahead of Sugar’s release, fans got a sneak peek of what Tonic was working on
when they appeared on the American Pie Soundtrack with the song 'You wanted more.' The track would
peak at number 3 on the billboard modern rock tracks chart and appeared on Sugar.. Emerson
hart would tell Billboard ahead of the album's release “This record has got a lot more southern
influences. We toured a lot down there and they were good to us. We identify with that culture
It is also heavier guitar wise Plus the humidity down there works wonders for my voice. We look at
the record as an eclectic puzzle.” Sugar would also represent the first album that was truly a
collaborative effort between all the members of the band. But unfortunately for the band, Sugar
would sell just a fraction of the band's debut album, moving only about 200,000 copies.
Despite poor sales, the band still put on a brave face with Lavery telling MTV The best you can
do is love your own record," "That way if your fans don't like it, you know at least you do."
The band’s follow up record would see the group team up with Metallica producer Bob Rock
and released in 2003, the group’s follow up record Head on Straight sold poorly only moving
about 30,000 copies and not garnering much radio play.. Surprisingly though,
the album received 2 grammy nominations and MTV even published an article questioning
whether the Grammy’s were out of touch with popular music with the network .even
interviewing Russo who was surprised by the nominations telling MTV "As a matter of fact,
when we were told, all of us thought it was a joke,. We did not expect them at all."
By 2004 the band went on hiatus while members worked on other musical projects. Tonic would
return in 2008 and put out two more subsequent records including their self titled record in
2010 & their most recent album 2016’s Lemon Parade Revisited. The album celebrated the 20th
anniversary of their debut album by re-recording all the tracks from their debut album as
acoustical numbers. During the last year the band revealed to fans they have been recording new
music and most recently released a new non-album single in "To Be Loved" in February of 2021.
It would be accompanied by the group’s first music video in almost two decades.And
the members have found success outside of the band with Russo becoming a music composer for
both television nd movies and won an emmy in 2017 for outstanding music composition
for a limited series, movie or special for his work on the TV program Fargo.
Hart meanwhile would most recently release a solo album in 2019. That does it for today's
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