Look At Me Now
Ridel High's Music Industry Rollercoaster Ride...And Recent Reemergence
One of the strangest things about putting the Generation Blue project together over the last few years was writing about my own ‘90s Geek Rock trio Ridel High.
It helped to have a pen name (nom de plume, S.W. Lauden; nom de drum, Steve Coulter), but it was a unique challenge interviewing Kevin Ridel—the band’s songwriter and namesake—as if I hadn’t been there myself. We sadly lost guitarist Steve LeRoy in 2019, before the interviews began, but he is lovingly remembered throughout the oral history that is dedicated to him.
It was Kevin and Steve who originally formed the band in 1995 after Ridel’s previous Hollywood band Lunchbox broke up. I had seen Lunchbox open for my friends in Popsicko at a Hollywood club called The Gaslight and thought they were pretty great.
“Justin or Adam (from Shufflepuck) told me about a guitarist they worked with named Steve LeRoy. They were like, ‘You should really add him to your band to fill out the sound.' I did it and they were totally right. I did some demos including (the song) ‘Look At Me Now.’ I played it for Steve, and he was like, ‘Dude, we’ve got to start something new with this style of music.’ So ‘Look At Me Now’ was kind of the catalyst for Ridel High,” Ridel told me for Generation Blue.
“Look At Me Now” was probably the song that convinced me to start playing with Ridel and LeRoy (we weren’t called Ridel High yet, a name soon suggested by Kevin’s former heavy metal bandmate, Rivers Cuomo). At the time, I was living in Hermosa Beach, writing for a weekly rag, and playing local bars with surf and punk bands.
So, I was reluctant when Marko DeSantis (Popsicko/Sugarcult) encouraged me to try out. I really wasn’t interested in driving back and forth to Hollywood several nights a week, but was convinced after meeting with Kevin and Steve and hearing their impossibly hooky demos. It was a pivotal turning point in my life.
Ridel High rehearsed a lot, wrote new songs, recorded demos with various producers, occasionally got wined and dined, and played countless SoCal shows.
We shared stages with Frank Black, Wesley Willis, Bis, Ween and Fluf along the way. A booker at the Whisky once told us that we had played there more than any other band that year. A dubious distinction, but a good demonstration of our dedication.
“Because of Lunchbox, Ridel High was getting headlining shows and thrown on bills right away. We played with our friends’ bands like Shufflepuck, Agnes Gooch and Nerf Herder, and a lot of bands that were coming up around that time like Ozma, Phantom Planet and Kara's Flowers,” Ridel recalls.
We made a 7-inch (“A Mouthful Of You” b/w “Winona Ryder”—recorded by Popsicko’s Keith Brown in his downtown Santa Barbara apartment) that got some airplay on The End in Seattle in 1995. We also had well-connected management, but struck out getting signed by a major label.
We recorded our only album, Hi Scores, with Joey Cape (Lagwagon) for My Records, the Santa Barbara indie label where Nerf Herder also got their start.
“Once My Records started getting some traction with Nerf Herder’s radio success (thanks to the song “Van Halen”), I think we re-envisioned the label,” said DeSantis, who ran the label with Cape. “Rather than just be another ‘90s punk label like Fat Wreck Chords, Epitaph, Hopeless, Fearless, Drive Thru, etc., perhaps My Records could specialize in—and become the natural home for—a whole new genre made up of bands that sort of had that undefinable 'Weezeresque' sound.”
Hi Scores came out in 1997, failing to set the indie world on fire. But we did get a new manager who had an in with A&M Records. That label acquired the album from My Records, repackaged/renamed it Emotional Rollercoaster and rereleased it in 1998.
We shot a video for the first single, “Self Destructive” (directed by Gerald Casale of Devo!), toured Japan with our buddies in Summercamp, and did some West Coast shows with Weezer at the dawn of the Pinkerton era. Alas, alternative rock radio didn’t respond to the single and A&M soon suffered brutal lay offs.
Ridel High got dropped. That’s why they call it the music business, right?!
I eventually left to play with a new band called Tsar while Steve and Kevin started Peel. Kevin later fronted AM Radio (their song “Hush” is also on the Generation Blue compilation, along with an early demo of Ridel High’s “Self Destructive”).
Ridel High’s music industry rollercoaster ride is an old story.
Regardless of the direction our “careers” took, we always loved playing those songs. So, it’s no surprise that Kevin and I have sporadically gotten together with a revolving cast of talented friends over the years to dust them off for school fundraisers, birthday parties and, most recently, to celebrate Generation Blue.
I don’t play drums very often these days, but performing favorites like “Look At Me Now,” “Self Destructive,” “180” and “Monsters Under Your Bed” with some of my oldest pop rock pals is always hard to resist.
I just purchased the book and LP. A scene I’m certainly not familiar with. Can’t wait for both to arrive so I can dig in!
Love the stories, keep 'em coming. One day the stars will align and I will be in LA for a live show. One day...