Stabbing Westward Biography

Revealing. Bare and brutal. Darkest Days, Stabbing Westward's third outing for Columbia Records, has its dark moments, yes. But it ends with hope. "By exploring our darkest days musically we're able to understand them in a way we couldn't if we didn't write about them," says singer and songwriter Christopher Hall, "but at the same time there's hope everywhere on this record. The fact that we can look at our times and write songs about them is hopeful." "We don't need to go to a shrink, we're perfectly abnormal," quips Andy Kubiszewski, the other half of the band's lyric writing duo.

As much as the lyrics are about despair, loss and the search for inner salvation, the music -- though solid and dense -- still has pop overtones and a melodic groove. It's propelling and compelling. "We want to be emotionally heavy, not sonically heavy," maintains Hall. "The music is more of a moody thing rather than an angry, testosterone thing."

Though Darkest Days was completed a year-to-the-month after Stabbing Westward concluded their global tour in support of 1996's RIAA certified-gold Wither Blister Burn + Peel (which included the radio hit "What Do I Have To Do?"), the new album has been, in a sense, 10 years in the making. ("It's the next phase in our natural growth," offers bassist Jim Sellers.) With two major-label, full-length records (including 1993's Ungod, an effect-rich, industrial-leaning record), an early EP, and more than decade's-worth of touring under their belts, the quintet has ignored preconceived notions and over-used labels to create a fully-realized sonic document of
Stabbing Westward '98. "On Darkest Days, we took a lot of the industrial elements from Ungod and combined them with what we liked of the cleaner Wither..., then added a few surprises -- things that we wouldn't have normally tried to do," explains Kubiszewski. Comparing Darkest Days to the group's first two albums, Hall offers, "It's more melodic, more organic... we're more of a band."

To capture the heat of five accomplished musicians and the organic essence of the band's intense live shows, Stabbing Westward enlisted the talents of producer Dave Jerden (best known for his work with Jane's Addiction and Alice in Chains). Recording during the Summer of 1997 in a Los Angeles-area studio, Jerden used his keen ear to obtain the live vibe -- predominately on guitars, bass and drums -- while Kubiszewski and Flakus handled the sensitive fusion of keyboards and programming. "What we really needed was help trying to capture the sound of the live band, and Dave Jerden was the perfect man for the job," explains Hall. "We've
grown over the course of three records, learned a lot, matured.... we've found our own voice and our own sound."

This potent combination led the band to mix the album themselves, beginning with "Save Yourself," which, when
remixed, became the first single. "We're the chefs, we know how much of each ingredient needs to go into the stew to make it just right," Hall measures. "It's such a delicate balance between all the sounds and styles to create something that is uniquely Stabbing Westward. We've always considered ourselves more eclectic, and more about songwriting than about style."

As heavy as it may sound, the result is much more a unified opus than a simple collection of songs; although not a "concept album," Darkest Days is 16 songs divided in four parts by a mood and emotion change. After recording the demos, Jerden and the band arranged the songs to tell one story -- and then recorded them in order. "Instead of having sixteen songs on the album, we have a complete body of work with a really great flow from song to song," Sellers observes.

As Hall recalls: "The first four songs are about the various ways in which you mess up; the next group are obvious relationship type songs that go from being hopeful to the answer to hope to 'they're still hanging around' (including the first single 'Save Yourself' and the original version of 'Torn Apart,' which also appeared remixed on the Spawn soundtrack); the ambient 'Drowning,' 'Desperate Now' and 'Goodbye' are when you've hit the bottom of the barrel; and the last four are emerging from the dark and sticking to what you believe in -- the climax of the roller coaster." "We thought of it as a whole rather than a bunch of individual songs," Flakus asserts. "It's a cohesive body of work. This is really the heart and soul of Stabbing Westward."

Also helping to make Darkest Days a solid and flowing body of work was new guitarist Mark Eliopulos, who joined Stabbing Westward in 1996 after the recording of Wither.... "On the last album, Andy, Chris and I played all the guitar with the exception of one song -- which Walter played on," begins Sellers. "The problem was we couldn't play the songs as a band because we didn't have enough hands. This time we had the opportunity to rehearse all the songs before we went into the studio. And now we have this guy that totally rips on guitar as well as being very natural. Mark's not big on effects, he's more of a mood player."

Because the band has always looked for the best players rather than the "best with the right personality," Stabbing Westward has had more than its share of personnel changes Sellers believes. The group first formed in 1985 when Hall and Flakus, former students at Western Illinois University, moved from a small Southern Illinois town to Chicago; their response to the area's exploding music scene was to form Stabbing Westward (with Hall on bass and Flakus on keyboards). Hall switched to guitar when Sellers -- whose alternative Goth
band was playing with Stabbing Westward in the clubs of Chicago -- joined as bass player. (From that point, the band went through a series of drummers -- including former Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna -- and guitarists.) In 1990, after developing a strong following, the band released a 4-song EP. Hall took a brief "respite" touring with Die Warzau as that group's percussionist and the break convinced him that Stabbing Westward had something special and worthy of major attention.

Columbia Records agreed; with drummer David Suycott and guitarist Stuart Zechman (formerly with Filter) in place, the band flew to London in 1993 to record Ungod with producer John Fryer (NIN, Love & Rockets). After extensive touring behind Ungod, Stabbing Westward parted ways with Suycott and Zechman and recruited Kubiszewski (an accomplished drummer/programmer/keyboardist who was a founding member of the Exotic Birds and who'd toured with The The and Crowded House). Now a foursome with guitar duties shared, the band entered the studio with Fryer to record 1996's Wither Blister Burn + Peel. After flying in guitarists from across the country to their rehearsal space outside Chicago, the four Stabbing Westward members were impressed by the younger and very eager local guy Eliopulos. It's still very much a group effort, "a family" as Sellers calls it. Kubiszewski agrees, concluding: "There are five of us in this band -- not just one or two people creating this. It's a democracy. It's a band in the truest sense."

Now, seemingly permanently based on a bus, Stabbing Westward is a solid five-piece group with a rich and diverse history and extensive road experience -- and a new album that reflects their unity and experience -- Darkest Days.