Fuel is a band that was synonymous with rock radio in the late 90’s and early 2000’s
with several massive hits including “Shimmer”
and Hemorrhage (in my hands. Today we’re talking about the band Fuel whatever happened to the group
and their turbulent history.
Fuel would actually have Southern roots, hailing from Kenton Tennessee.As Guitarist Carl Bell
and bassist Jeff Ambercrombie grew up together in the same town and form the band while they
were still in Juniors high in 1989.
The sleepy town of Kenton, which at the time only had two traffic lights served as the
perfect playground for the budding musicians.
Bell would tell the LA Times “It’s easy to sit in front of a TV and let it control
your mind,” “I would have to find other ways to keep myself entertained.
I would pick up a guitar or I would listen to music.
. . . My brothers read a lot.
Bell who was a little older than Abercrombie would graduate from high school and meet
a drummer named Jody Abbott in college.
The pair would play in a variety of bands until 1992. That year that Ambercrombie
saw a singer named Brett Scallions performing in a bar in Jackson Tennesse and
was so enthralled with his performance that he asked the vocalist to join his band.
Scallions was heavily influenced by the likes of Elvis, the blues, county music and metal and
by 1993 the group Fuel would be born.
The following year they would release an 8 song cassette
titled Porcelain which they sold at both shows and in record stores and it sold reasonably
well moving about 10,000 copies By 1995 the band moved from Western Tenneesse to Harrisberg
Pennsylvania since it was closer to the major metropolitan hubs of New York City and Washington
DC and Philadelphia .The band took a very DIY approach to marketing the band with Bell
telling MTV "We were a do-it-yourself kind of band for
a long time,"We'd reinvest whatever money we'd make performing back into studio equipment
and stuff to take on the road with us.
We recorded [our first EP, Porcelain] ourselves, produced it ourselves ... after hours, before
soundchecks."
On top of that the band even divided up the duties amongst it’s members with him going
onto say "I was doing the recording and writing," Brett
[Scallions] was calling radio and [doing] promotion.
Our drummer [Kevin Miller] was taking [our music] to retailers.
Our bass player [Jeff Abercrombie] was doing a lot of the merchandising.
They had some success early on with Scallions revealing to the Morning Call Newspaper how
one radio station in Harrisberg was already playing the song Shimmer on the
radio even before they signed a record deal.
But it was a grind for the group as Bell was splitting his time between school and the
band opting to go back to school full time in an effort to become an English teacher,
but then their fortunes changed as he would recall to the LA Time
“I had decided to get myself another parachute so I could maybe land on my feet somewhere
else,”“I was back in school actually up until a month before we got signed (to 550
Music).
I still had music in my mind, but at the same time I was thinking, ‘Let’s look at reality
here.’ The band soon generated major buzz from the
labels ahead of their signing with one gig at Tramps in New York City being attended
by reps of 25 different different record labels.
They would eventually sign with Sony
The group also underwent a lineup change ahead of recording their first album with
drummer Kevin Miller joining the group in December of 1997.
Part of the band’s success up until this point and after they signed with a major label
had to do with how they treated their fans.
Several interviews and articles i came across consistently quoted Scallions approach to
the music industry with him saying “Fuel was more interested in making friends than
fans.”
By late 1997 and 1998 the band retreated to a horse farm in Massachusetts which also
served as a recording studio - long view farm studios where greats like Aerosmith and Rolling
Stone had spent time.
These sessions would result in the band's debut album Sunburn which would
produce four hit singles that charted in the top 40 alternative rock charts.
Shimmer was by far the being the biggest hit peaking at number2 on the billboard
modern rock charts right behind Goo Goo Dolls “Iris.’
Ironically, the success of the song would come full circle as Bell wrote the song while
sitting on a couch in his apartment in Harrisberg, Pennsylvania.
He would see the song’s video on MTV sitting on the same couch he wrote the song
telling the network “I saw it go full circle,” “You realize that the song is
no longer confined to this room. It’s out there in the world doing its thing.”
Sunburn would ride the wave of popularity that post-grunge bands were seeing resulting in
it going platinum.
Bell would tell MTV another key to the bands success
recalling to MTV
"Modern-rock alternative-radio
stations spearheaded the whole thing,"
"And it did well on some [classic] rock stations as well."
During a break in the tour to support Sunburn the band rented a house in the Poconos Mountains
during the idle of winter.
The band locked themselves in the house’s
basement, and wrote, and rehearsed what would be their
follow up album titled something like human
The album would be recorded in new york city in an effort to capture the aggressiveness
of the big apple.
Something like human also featured the band’s
most successful hit of their career with hemorrhage
(in my hands).
Something Like Human would prove to be the band's biggest record of their
career going double platinum thanks to hemorrhage which peaked at number
on the modern rock charts where it spent 12 weeks.
The song also had cross over appeal peaking at number 30 on the hot 100 charts.
The album would once again produce a total of 4 singles
peaked in the top 40 on the us alternative
rock charts
Guitarirst and prinicpal songwirter Carl Bell seemed more at peace with how the
group’s sophomore effort compared to their previous album telling MTV
"I don't think we captured the band like we should've captured it [on the first record],"
"The first record was more of a testimonial of where I was at that time," Bell said of
his songwriting.
"We were struggling as a band trying to get signed.
I was going, 'Oh, no, this music thing is a bunch of crap, I'm never gonna make it.'
[The new album will be] a documentation of where I am now.
I'm not influenced as much by outside things as inside experiences.
Their band's music was also popular for hollywood
as their songs would appear in tv showsincluding Prison
Break, and movies including Daredevil and Scream 3 and
even WWE pay-per-view events.
The band took some time off ahead of releasing their third album due to health problems and
legal problems.
Scallions had to have surgery to repair a deviated septum he suffered after an onstage
collision with guitarist Carl Bell. Released in 2003 natural selection
would see the band work with Soundgarden and Hole producer Michael Beinhorn.
Bell would reveal the inspiration behind the album's name
saying “it has connotations back to survival of the fittest and all those cliches.
But it’s true a lot of the bands that were around when we started are gone now.
And this industry is so here today gone later that day that it’s a tough business to stick
around in.”
The album proved to be less commercially successful
not even going gold,m but still producing a hit in
Falls on Me which peaked in the top 10 on the us mainstream rock charts.
It would be the last album to feature drummer Kevin Miller and vocalist Brett Scallions.
The band underwent some tumultuous times between
2004 and 2006 with Miller first leaving the band in 2004 after feuding in the public.
It appeared his departure was due to business disputes over royalties.
According to the morning call newspaper Miller was supposed to receive 25 percent of all
profits from the band’s tour in addition to 6.5 percent of all publishing royalties;
Ahead of the band releasing their third album for Sony the label offered the band
a 3 million advance, half of which go to recording the album, with the remaining money
being split amongst its members.
Miller claimed he was owed around $350K, but onl yreceived $212K
He would end up filing a lawsuit against his former bandmates.
In 2005 the band stirred a bit of controversy when during President George W Bush’s second
inauguration the band performed at the inauguration
bash where Scallion used some colorful language.
The following year Scallions would leave the group over creative differences with the
frontman telling Lancaster online “I’ve always been the type of
person with the mentality of, if you’re not happy doing what you’re doing, then
why are you doing it?”
“So, I needed to clear my head and explore new things.
I just wasn’t having a good time.”
It would turn out it would be musical differences with prinicpal songwriter carl Bell.
Bell would have his own version of events telling the Traverse City Eagles Times and i quote
"Brett just called up one day and said he had some issues he
wanted to deal with and he basically bowed
out, "We were like, 'Hey, that sucks and we'd rather you not do that, but if that's what
you want to do, then that's what you gotta do'."
The band’s former drummer allegedly also
said that since Scallions surgery in the early 2000's he had been
lip syncing due to him having issues with his voice and thatthis may have
had some part to play in his departure in addition to creative differences
over songwriting.
Even though Scallions wasn’t a member of the band anymore Fuel had enough material
to record their fourth album Angels and Devils with new vocalist Toryn Green which they would
put out in 2007.
It was reported around this time the band wanted to hire Chris
Daughtry of American Idol fame to join the
band after seeing him perform one of the band’s songs on the show, but he declined forming
his own band.
Angels and Demons was the group’s last record for Sony and it was the worst performing of
the four they released for the label.
While on hiatus, Brett Scallions played with
other groups including original members of the Doors
Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger.
And tow years later in 2009 Scallions once again
found himself working with bassist Jeff Abercrombie
in an offshoot of his old band called
re-fueled which played Fuel’s songs.
The partnership only lasted one year though.
Strangely enough in 2010 it was announced that Carl Bell and Jeff Abercrombie
would be leaving Fuel but The same day it was
announced that Scallions was rejoining the band.
So io So, in one day, two of the three founding members quit while Scallions suddenly returned
to keep the band going.
The new line up started recording together, and released 2013’s Puppet Strings (the
first Fuel album to feature Scallions in a decae).
They still kept making music together.
They toured around the world and celebrated the 20th
Anniversary of Sunburn.
Fuel would continue to undergo numerous lineup changes with Scallions being the only original
member.
While on hiatus from Fuel, Bell would release a solo country album called Tennesse Fuel.
& Bell re-established himself as a country artist.
He’d always been the sole songwriter of the lyrics and music in the band, so coming
up with his material wasn’t exactly a stretch.
In October 2020, Scallions announced on Facebook
that he was officially leaving Fuel after creative differences with his bandmates:
In 2021, Bell would re-formed Fuel with original drummer Kevin Miller and a new singer in
John Corsale. In October of this year Fuel will be releasing their
latest album Anamoly with the first single hard being released in july of this year.
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