For some, Urge Overkill could be lumped in with the surplus of axe-wielding rockers on offer in the 1990s, though the Chicago trio had some interesting distinctions.
For a start, they took their name from Parliament space psyche epic 'Funkentelechy'. The rockstar aliases of guitarist/vocalists Nash Kato and Eddie 'King' Roeser and drummer Blackie Onassis made them sound like roadwarrior kung fu assassins. And their satin shirts, velour jackets, tinted glasses and chunky medallions stamped with their logo made them look like streetwise dandies or an Amish funk band.
If you only came on board with their fourth album Saturation, you'd be none the wiser to their noisier, punkier roots on respected independent label Touch and Go Records (home to Butthole Surfers, Big Black and The Jesus Lizard).
Even before they recorded their cover of 'Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon' [from their 1992 Stull EP], Urge Overkill looked like they belonged on a Quentin Tarantino set rather than a rock stage.
In the sea of greasy hair and flailing flannel shirts of the grunge faithful, Urge Overkill's blatant rockstar overtures and sartorial sensibilities had people either cheering, sneering, or scratching their heads.
"The reason why we started dressing up and everything is because everyone in our city at the time was just doing the whole 'anti dressing up' thing. It was kind of like the beginning of the whole what became known as grunge," Blackie Onassis (real name John Rowan) told triple j in 1993.
"To us, it seemed more like a uniform when everyone was wearing these torn jeans and band t-shirts, you know, like the right band t-shirts and hanging out with the right people," he says of the pervasive rigours of 90s indie cred.
"It was a very closed clique, you know? So we came [with] the attitude of [being] like, outsiders from that. So we decided to be gregarious, to go against what they were all doing at the time."
While they stirred up confusion and derision in some circles, bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam got the joke.
They cottoned on to Urge Overkill's sly kiss off to indie dogma, inviting the Chicago trio to open on their Nevermind and Vs tours respectively.
"At first people were really indifferent to us, people in the other bands, I think, resented it," Onassis continued.
"But eventually, we just kept playing shows and we kept putting together records. We got a little better at songwriting.
"At first, I think we had a lot of ideas, but we didn't have a lot of songs really to back them up, you know, but it's eventually evolved to where it's now the music and the idea of the band have become one."
Urge Overkill's sound started out with the murkier strains of Jesus Urge Superstar produced by Steve Albini (a former housemate of Kato's).
Their power pop/garage was further refined on sophomore album Americruiser (produced by Butch Vig), before delivering their best batch of songs to date with The Supersonic Storybook, their first record with newly (fourth) recruited drummer Blackie Onassis.
"When I joined the band, that's when the sound started to change a little bit," he explained. "I just had a more committed attitude."
"Until me they [Kato and Roeser] couldn't get a drummer who really wanted to get serious about the idea of being a professional touring band. Everyone up until then was doing it as a hobby. And I knew that Nash and Eddie, had a really professional attitude, but it was just so hard to find a drummer."
"And when they got me, I was committed to the band, even though [the band] was really obscure then. We didn't have many people in the States or even in our own town who had really even heard of us at all, but I just had a good feeling about it."
With a solid, fully committed drummer on board - who could also take on vocal duties too, as he did on 'Dropout' - combined with the band's profile and sound developing to match their stadium sized ambitions, a move to a major label was soon on the cards.
Along with that, the band was keen to explore a bolder new sound which meant considering some more left-field choices as producers for the album, too.
"We could never get a producer in the underground who was interested in giving us a really clean, dry sound. With the indie producers that we've used, they all had a sound that came with them," Onassis said of the band's previous recording experiences.
"Albini had the wall of feedback, and Kramer [who worked on the Stull EP] has like all the reverb, and Butch Vig has something that he does too you know, and it's like, they do that on everything that they do.
"Whereas we wanted a production style that was really dry, with really loud drum kit and really loud vocals. Then we found this guy, the Butcher.."
That's Joe Nicolo, who had a background in hip hop production for Cypress Hill and Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, and later along with his brother, Phil, became known as The Butcher Bros.
"So we just took a risk on him, even though he hadn't done a rock record, and we didn't really know who he was, we just took a chance."
That chance paid off in spades with Urge Overkill's fourth album, Saturation.
Despite its dry and clean production aims, the record is drenched with a contagious energy fuelled by dirty guitar fuzz ('Tequila Sundae', 'Crackbabies', 'The Stalker'), classic rock swagger ('Sister Havana'), and pent-up urgency ('Woman 2 Woman', 'Erica Kane').
Saturation may be Urge Overkill's sole hit album, a creative highpoint they were unable to match with subsequent releases. But the significance of that impact shouldn't be minimised and maybe the lyrics of 'Positive Bleeding' can explain why.
"Now I'm in my life with no control of my destiny
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, I can bleed when I want to bleed"
In a decade where maudlin self-loathing permeated through culture and so much guitar-driven music, it was brilliant to see a band having fun.
With their playful rock personas, Urge Overkill brandished their tough melodicism to shift perspectives in an emphatic embrace of individuality and connectedness.
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