This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 13, 2012 - Even with a hiatus built into the number, Bunnygrunt’s about to log two decades as a creative entity, celebrating with a few high-profile shows, even as bassist and co-founder Karen Ried is set to move out of town in early January.
Asked about the 20-year mark, Ried says, “I just think it’s weird. Bands aren’t supposed to last that long.”
Her own move out of South City, where she has long lived and worked, would stop most groups cold. But Bunnygrunt’s never done things in exactly the normal way, so it’s not a surprise that its next chapter together will involve a bit of long-distance songwriting and crash-bang rehearsals. To their mind, the outskirts of Cincinnati isn’t all that far and the mental telepathy that the band has developed over time isn’t going to dissipate on a five-hour drive.
“Our songwriting’s not that complicated,” Ried says. “We can rehearse them pretty quickly.”
Ried adds that the songwriting’s long been a split between guitarist Matt Harnish and Ried and that the group has gone through “long and cold” periods in songwriting.
In recent years, as exemplified by its latest and finest album, “Matt Harnish and Other Delights,” the group’s ability to craft wonderful pop songs has never been greater.
“I think we’ve gotten way more musical in the last year,” says Harnish.
Young drummer Eric von Damage would have to be credited with part of that evolution, too, the most recent addition to a group that has seen about 15 players come and go over the years, with only Ried and Harnish as constants.
Birth at a record store
If a band’s going to form anywhere, a record store’s a pretty good place to meet. As Harnish remembers it, his former group, Give Her a Lizard, “shopped at the Streetside on Watson a lot. I met Karen there and she helped me get a job at the Streetside in Webster Groves. At the time, they were sister stores.”
Finding musical kinship, the pair eventually decided to break off on their own, and in 1993 Bunnygrunt formed with Ried on drums, Harnish on guitar and Renee Dullum eventually working out on bass. That lineup recorded the ‘95 debut, “Action Pants,” on No Life Records, which would also release its second LP, “Jen-Fi,” named after bassist Jen Wolfe, who succeeded Dullum.
The band was taking advantage of a boom in independent rock, as the ‘90s spawned every manner of band support systems. Though few were getting rich, groups across the country were tapping into increasingly influential college radio, an explosion of zines, newly formed music festival and conferences. It was a heady time to be a group with a bit of a reputation; and Bunnygrunt, among all groups in St. Louis, was aggressive in taking its show on the road. At the same time, it was recording plenty.
Harnish admits that the band’s hottest period came “just after the first album came out. The years of ‘95-’98 were probably when we had the biggest position of power. When we got the most college radio play, when we had club bookers in our corner. (Those were) the years when we were playing Cicero’s Basement Bar. We can break even now, but that’s when we could’ve made a living at it, had we chosen to.”
In 1998, the band took an extended hiatus, essentially breaking between December of that year and December of 2003, at which point Ried says that they got back together because “we decided that we were miserable not playing music with each other.” Ever quick to finish a sentence of his long-time friend, Harnish says, “We decided to share that misery with the world.”
While that narrative’s mostly true, it wasn’t as if the pair spent all that time apart. They played together with the groups Brown Company and The See-Thrus. Meanwhile, Harnish moonlit with Julia Sets, among others, while Ried had side-project tenures with the Apricots, Thee Noble Gasses UK, Fantasy Four, the International House of Karen and Mega Hurts, in which she split songwriting duties with her best friend and longtime co-worker Cory Hammerstone. Harnish, during this period, also invested much time in the Bert Dax Cavalcade of Stars, a label he founded, that has offered (mostly) annual Christmas compilations, as well as limited-releases for friends and his own bands.
But returning in 2003, the band decided to keep the Bunnygrunt name, rather than reinventing itself. Its output since has been relatively light -- three full-lengths and some singles -- but it has been playing shows, setting up unusual side gigs (such as its Blondie side-project Blondiegrunt) and exploring different possibilities.
The group once brought in extra guitars. Not just players, but ace musicians like Erik Seaver, Jason Hutto and Mario Viele, playing as a five-piece on some tours.
While both founders say they loved making music with that expanded sound, Harnish says, “Once we decided to be a trio again, it gelled. It was fun to be in a band with those folks. But we’re good as a trio.”
Breaking a 20
And this trio has been through a bit, too, even playing dates when von Damage had an injured hand (he was playing gigs with a single stick and a lot of pluck). You get the sense that if the band wants to keep at it, this particular lineup can work through Ried’s move.
On the other hand, her departure from Soulard blues-burgers-and-beer bar Hammerstone’s, where she’s been a longtime bartender, might be a bit tougher on everyone. She’s going to be missed by her regulars, of whom there’s a good number, the bands she watches weekly basis and more than anyone, Cory Hammerstone. Last week, during our interview, she burst into tears when handing Ried letters of recommendation. Yeah, that place isn’t going to be the same.
And Ried’s been there around the clock. Literally closing the place, sleeping in the upstairs office for a few hours, then pulling herself back into action for the 6:30 a.m. open, when workers from local factories, as well as all-night clubs like Pop’s, roll in for their after-work sip. Most shifts, of late, though, have come when the blues bands are onstage and the nightly specials are going across the bar. Theoretically, being freed from weekend shifts might mean Bunnygrunt will play Friday and Saturday night shows in St. Louis again, instead of off-nights.
Everything’s possible and everything’s on the table.
And a few gigs are set.
On Saturday, Jan. 5, just before Ried’s departure, the group will play at the Pageant with the Bottle Rockets and Old Lights. Two months later, on March 12, it will celebrate its 20th anniversary at Plush, playing the release party for its new split-45 on Tower Groove Records, with the group on the flipside of that release, Trauma Harness.
From there, who knows? To date, Harnish has personally sold an album to R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe and the group played the legendary Yo-Yo a Go-Go Festival in Olympia, Wash. It has brought dozens of bands to St. Louis, helping set up gigs when groups have been orphaned on the road, without a tour-bridging date in town. It has always been available for events like Record Store Day, or even a friend’s wedding reception. Bunnygrunt has provided glue for the St. Louis scene, helping make connections without a lot of fanfare, while creating seriously fun music along the way.