Chords for Jellyfish The Sad History Of the Band, Andy Sturmer & Roger Manning, Belly Button & Spilt Milk

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This is a band that's
been requested by a lot of people and we're talking about the group Jellyfish.
They were
a short lived band based out of [A] California that only lasted for about half a decade and
put out two studio albums, but they would be hugely influential and develop a cult following.
The nucleus of the band was made up of drummer and singer Andy Sturmer and keyboardist Roger
Joseph Manning Jr.
The pair would cycle through a revolving lineup of instrumentalists and
today we're talking about the story of Jellyfish a band that ended too soon. _ _ _
_ _ The band's story
dates back to the 70's when Andy Sturmer and Roger Joseph Manning Jr.
met in high school
in San Francisco and bonded over their love of all things jazz, post-punk and british
pop.
Sturmer played in a high school jazz band and showed promise as a gifted musician
could sing and play drums at the same time.
Manning would tell Classic Rock magazine
I've never seen anyone of his age with that expertise and command of his instrument.
Andy
was one of the first kids in our town who took it seriously and had a goal.
He was my
hero he'd say.
Following high school Manning moved to Los Angeles and was admitted to the
University of Southern California to study musical composition and he soon became [B] enamored
with the local music scene.
LA at the time was alive to the sounds of post-punk, the
birds obsessed Paisley Underground movement and most [A] prominent of all glam metal which
was exploding from the Sunset Strip.
But Manning would be captivated by an LA band that stood
apart the flamboyantly attired pop rockers Red Cross.
Soon enough Sturmer and Manning
would join the act Beatnik Beach which was signed to Atlantic Records.
They would soon
leave the group after collaborating with one another and they developed their own musical
style and in 1989 they formed the group Jellyfish.
Combining the musical stylings of The Beatles,
Cheap Trick, [C#m] ELO and Queen Jellyfish would [A] become pop rock pioneers and develop what
many would consider their own unique sound.
Even after the pair left Beatnik Beach they
were still technically signed to Atlantic Records, but they weren't a priority for
the label.
The band's career began at a time when rock music was undergoing a massive
shift from more pop influenced and hair metal to the dark gloomy sound of alternative rock
at the turn of the new decade.
Jellyfish didn't really fit what the record labels were trying
to push in the early 90's.
The aesthetic of the band was completely off the wall.
Think
steampunk meets psychedelic hippie.
In a 1993 LA Times article Sturmer said the group and
i quote never tried to suck up to any genre of music.
We just did what came naturally
to us and didn't worry about it.
After they were signed to Atlantic Records they recorded
over the course of a year and soon became the subject of a bidding war with 8 labels.
The band would eventually settle with Charisma Records who gave the band total creative control.
Their first record Belly Button was released on July 27, 1990 when hair metal was still highly
popular.
[E] The band was always aware of the fact that they were [A] entirely contrary to what was
going on in popular music at the time.
[B] The top performing single Baby Coming Back would hit the
billboard top 100 charts, [A] but album sales were kinda slow only topping out at 100,000 units.
The band's singles also got the video treatment which got some play on MTV, but Jellyfish was
from being considered a household name.
Despite that they did find high profile fans.
The band
would tour with the southern rock group the Black Crows [B] who took [E] Jellyfish out on tour in 1991.
_ [A] Member Jason [E] Faulkner would briefly join the group with the bait of a [B] major label deal [A] and would stay
with them through the recording of Belly Button.
Faulkner and Sturmer immediately clashed.
In a
2014 Louder Sound online article Faulkner said I immediately had trouble with Andy.
He's just a
difficult guy.
Andy had a real strong idea of what he wanted to do, and I found that my voice
wasn't as loud.
They weren't open to doing any of my songs, and I didn't want to be a sideman.
He'd say.
With personality conflicts going on Faulkner still had fond memories of the first
album telling Louder Sound.
It was a really exciting time making that record, but also
bittersweet.
The songs were the sweet bit.
We were all very young.
I was just 20 and Roger and Andy
weren't that much older, but the music is very sophisticated.
It was hard because Andy and I
weren't talking he'd say.
Also joining the band on the album was Red Cross bassist Steve McDonald
and Steve wouldn't tour with the band instead being replaced by Manning's younger brother Chris.
The
band would enlist producer Albie Gallutin who was also best known for working with the Bee Gees.
He
would also work on the band's follow-up album as well.
As Jellyfish hit the road the band turned
their attention to developing a real stage presence.
They spent 12 weeks rehearsing for a
15-minute live show which included a white picket fence, a bubblegum machine and an 8-foot tall
statue of actor and Christian activist Gavin McLeod.
In 1991 they were one of five [G#m] openers
for NXS and Wembley Stadium and that's when the band started [A] developing a cult following.
Another
aspect of their stage show was that the whole band would stand together in a line at the front of the
stage with Sturmer playing a stripped-down drum kit while singing and standing.
The band's wardrobe
also caught people's attention as their onstage clothes were [Am] pretty colorful and seemed ripped
from Charlie [A] and the Chocolate Factory and [E] paid homage to the psychedelic feel of the 60s and [A] 70s.
Guitarist Jason Faulkner would tell Louder Sound how the band despised the [C#m] whole grunge look at
the time saying [A] we uniformly loathed the whole lumberjack rock star thing that was starting to
happen.
T-shirt and jeans and your crack showing when you lean down.
We didn't want to be an
everyman band at all.
We wanted to be from outer space with a wink and a nod he'd say.
While the
tour to support Belly Button would win over fans, the constant close quarters only made
existing tensions worse within the group and by the end of the tour Chris Manning and Jason
Faulkner had left the band.
Chris would go on to become a producer while Jason left after being
diagnosed with an ulcer in his early 20s, something he attributed to the stress of being in a band with
Andy.
Now with Chris and Jason now gone the band was just down to the main songwriting duo of Andy
and Roger.
In 1992 the pair had a few brushes with some major celebrities.
The songwriting duo
wrote five songs for Ring of Stars 1992 solo album with one of them being used called I Don't Believe
in You and they appeared in the music video for Weight of the World.
They also had a failed
songwriting session with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and the track would eventually appear on
Manning's 2005 solo album called Solid State Warrior without a credit to Wilson.
As the duo
turned their attention to their second album Spilt Milk they enlisted some session musicians to
[B] departed members.
The sessions to create the album was pretty tumultuous as [A] some of the recording
happened during the LA riots and the band adhered to a grueling 6 days a week schedule.
The album
also proved to be an expensive endeavor for the band who would end up creating a pretty varied
record with mass choirs, strings, brass, flutes and wind chimes among many other instruments.
In
fact the album's title Spilt Milk was a reference to being over budget and behind schedule on the
record.
And Spilt Milk [B] would prove to be a [C#m] commercial failure only peaking at number _ 165
on the billboard charts.
Sales numbers [A] aside the band did find [E] more fans in high places as
Queen guitarist [A] Brian May who was out promoting his solo record at the time Resurrection spoke
highly of Jellyfish in an interview saying We have the tape Spilt Milk on the bus.
We like it.
I can
hear some influences, but they're going into new places.
It's a very interesting group indeed.
I'm
glad our influence can be seen out there he'd say.
And things began to sour on tour for Spilt
Milk when the musical differences between Sturmer and Manning intensified.
Sturmer also resented the
role of frontman and being in the spotlight.
Manning would tell Louder Sound Andy and I
essentially had been together for six or eight years.
We were getting complacent and bored with
each other.
Our differences as people were starting to magnify and musically the exact
same thing was happening.
When we started putting together music for our third record it was clear
we were on very different paths.
Manning knew the end was near when he dropped by Sturmer's house
to talk about the band's third record.
At the time Manning was heavily into wings, t-rex and sparks,
groups that are generally high energy fun melodic pop with attitude.
So he was surprised when Sturmer
presented him with a song that was more reminiscent of Leonard Cohen.
The band would officially break
up in April of 1994 over a phone call.
Throughout Jellyfish's career they really didn't make much
Not helping things was Sturmer's iron-fisted rule over the band.
Manning would tell Magnet magazine
Now I can look back on it and see that without wisdom, maturity and maybe some counseling and
therapy we could have never worked our way through our problems.
Had there been more money coming in
it would have justified some of the pain he'd say.
So what happened [C#m] after Jellyfish you're
wondering.
Well Manning went on to start a new band called Imperial Drag with touring jellyfish
guitarist Eric Dover.
Their [F] sound veered more towards pop rock and was less heavily inspired
Queen [A] than Jellyfish was.
Meanwhile touring member Eric Dover would go on to front Guns
and Roses guitarist Slash's side project Snakepit in 1995.
_ Meanwhile Manning and former Jellyfish
guitarist Jason Faulkner would put out two albums together including 2000's Logan Sanctuary and 2006
as TVI's, but they both failed to be successful commercially.
Both Manning and Faulkner would
also play with alternative rock artist Beck.
While Faulkner would also put out a series of solo
albums.
Andy for his part would become pretty secretive about his post Jellyfish work and
declines to be interviewed.
Sturmer would end up writing music for a number of animated shows for
children including Batman and Transformers as well as for the Disney Network.
Even after all these
years the relationship between Andy and Roger still appears to be tense making a reunion unlikely.
The
pair had an offer to reunite for Coachella in the early 2000's, but Sturmer declined Manning's offer
his lawyer.
Even as recently as 2008 Manning shot down the idea of a reunion telling Magna Magazine
Except for Andy, we all speak to one another, some of us make music together, but nobody is
interested in working with Andy in a personal or creative capacity.
It would serve no purpose,
but I don't say that with any animosity or sadness he'd say.
That [B] does it for today's
video guys thanks for watching.
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