What's going on my fellow rock n' rollers. Now Tad was a band who showed a lot of potential
and it created a lot of momentum for themselves early in their career. They toured with the likes
or Nirvana and Soundgarden and following their formation in 1988, they were one of the first
bands to sign with Seattle Indie Label Sub Pop. But despite all this they were hit with a string
of bad luck that torpedoed their career. This is their story. Now Tad's sound was more remincent
of band's like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains from the Pacific Northwest. And like Alice in
Chains and Soundgarden the groups more influences leaned more heavily on metal and hard rock than a
lot of their other Seattle contemporaries who were mostly influenced by punk rock. Tad was formed by
Tad Doyle who was a vocalist and guitarist who recruited other local musicians including Kurt
Danielson to play bass and drummer Steve Wied who played in another well known Seattle band
named Skinyard.And while MTV latched onto a lot of bands who came out of Seattle in the early 90's,
Tad sadly wasn't one of them. In 1990 the band released their video for the song Wood Goblins,
which was found on their second release Salt Lick and God's Balls. But MTV refused to air because
as the network put it, it was too ugly.The band also got no respect from MTV's field reporters as
exemplified in the book Everybody Loves Our Town, The Oral History of Grunge. In the early 90's MTV
had come to Seattle to do a special report on the blossoming music scene and one of the
publicists who worked for Sub Pop took MTV news reporter Tabitha Soren to a local club where Tad
was playing. In the book the publicist recalled how Tabitha Soren only wanted to meet musicians
who looked like as she put it cute boys like Chris Cornell and when Soren met Tad she was completely
disgusted by them. Now the band's bad luck continued with their third release 8-way Santa
that was marred by not one, but two lawsuits that stalled all of the band's growing momentum. the
original cover of the album was a photo of a half naked couple a friend of the band had actually
purchased at a thrift store. The women on the front cover was now a christian singer and she had
spotted the cover in an issue of Spin Magazine and sued the band. The band and the label were forced
to pay the women and pull the record off shelves and reissue artwork that was much more toned down
a simple photo of the band.The other problem the band ran into was for their single Jack
Pepsi.The band's label Sub Pop literally had no money and wanted to court controversy by baiting
soft drink maker Pepsi into threatneing them with a lawsuit.The artwork for the single used a Pepsi
logo with the word Pepsi replaced with Tad. And well, the plan would backfire when a disgruntled
ex-employee from the label gave Pepsi a headsup and the soft drink maker sued the band and their
label once again. Now 8-Way Santa was expected to be the bands big break, but sadly the lawsuits
and litigation stalled what could have been a big year for the group. Despite these setbacks
the band did eventually get signed to a major label in 1992 when Tad signed to Warner Music
Group. Tad would reveal how labels would actually scout bands in Seattle saying "more ofthe than not
htey were looking for a look. You know flannel, disenfranchised teenager, hair down over the face.
Disconnected & disjointed from society having interesting takes on social situations probably
more than anything he'd conclude. Now Tad's major label debut came in the form of 1993's Inhaler,
which was well received by critics but it wasn't a big seller. It was during this time that Tad would
open for Soundgarden on their Superunknown tour in 1994, but unfortunately for the group Tad's
label would panick after seeing a promotional poster for Inhaler on the Soundgarden tour
showing President Bill Clinton smoking a joint with the caption reading "it's heavy shit." Now
Tad would claim their record label used it as an excuse to drop the band and the band
themselves would claim they had nothing to do with the poster, instead pointing the finger at one of
the promotional or art people from the label who came up with the concept. Now the band's string
of bad luck wouldn't end there. While the band would sign another major record deal in 1995 with
East/West Elektra records, which was also owned by Warner the band released their fifth album titled
Infrared Riding Hood and a month after the album came out things went south once again for the band
as the label's talent scout who signed Tad was promptly fired. The condition of their firing
was that all the talent scout's bands would be released from their contract with the label and it
would be around this time that Tad would undergo some lineup changes with several members leaving
the group. And by 1998 the band would finally break up and each member would pursue their own
musical projects. The band would temporarily reform in 2013 aa Subpop 25th anniversary show
in July of that year in Seattle. So that does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Let me
know your thoughts on Tad and the history of the band. And do you think they could've been much
bigger had the string of bad luck not happen to them. Let me know in the comments section below.
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