Some old saying goes something like “nothing is ever as good as you remember it.”
I’m here to say it’s not true, at least not always. Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers were better than I remembered them as the Refreshments; and the Refreshments were refreshing at a time when popular music was still dominated by the tedious whimpering of the Seattle sound.
Clyne uses this term for Peacemakers fans, but few bands play with as much heart as the Peacemakers.
The Peacemakers, from Tempe, Ariz., played the area most recently in Portland on July 5.
Unfortunately, my own words are incapable of doing the Peacemakers any justice. They do that themselves at their shows.
Another writer said the Peacemakers would now set the highest bar by which he would review concerts, and he’s right.
The Peacemakers’ music is honest and original; their show, vibrant and alive; and the whole package, one fiercely independent band sharing a lifestyle that is more about the art, fun and dancing with a social conscience than turning a profit every quarter.
Manager Michael Lustig says the Peacemakers could sign a major record deal. Instead of falling prey to the trap that wrecked the Refreshments in 1998, the band has chosen to follow its own course, recording, distributing and touring on its own.
Avoiding the typical commercial deal, Lustig said, the Peacemakers are doing as well after selling some 10,000 copies of their new CD, Sonoran Hope and Madness, than they did as the Refreshments selling 350,000 copies of their first CD, Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big and Buzzy.
The Peacemakers are following a new business model to success, a model that shakes off the industry’s short-term, short-sighted approach to profits. In that business model, the fans get top-notch, original music inexpensively. It is in such an environment, Lustig hopes a middle class among artists can grow.
Roger Clyne and drummer P.H. Naffa both tasted a record deal with a major label. When the Refreshments released their first CD, the president of Mercury Records worked with the band for months. The label worked the album’s first single, “Banditos,” for about six months, achieving moderate success. The band toured with excellent support from the record company.
Things changed when record labels, including Mercury, began merging. Seagram’s purchased Mercury, and Mercury had a new president, Clyne said. That president pulled the Refreshments off their tour, canceled the band’s third single and demanded they put together a second album, The Bottle and Fresh Horses. The label and the Refreshments argued over what song would be the first single. The label won and the first single was a song Clyne and his band thought should have been a B-side.
The overall attitude of the label changed, and Mercury only worked the single, “Good Year,” for three weeks. The single never got off the ground, and the CD sold some 50,000 copies.
The label’s option on the Refreshments was set to expire. The label offered a 90-day extension to the band to try a second single, Clyne said. The band took a vote and decided to tell the company it didn’t want to survive single to single, quarter by quarter. The label told the Refreshments goodbye.
Labels have continued, since the mid-1990s, to operate that way, Clyne and Lustig both explained. Prior to the mid-1990s, a band may sell 10,000 records on its first release, 50,000 on a second and so forth, carefully building a fan base, Clyne said. That would be considered a success. Now bands must sell a quarter of a million out of the gate or they’re considered failures.
The industry is trapped in this mentality, Clyne said, “evaluating record sales in a way that is really self-defeating. They’re so busy chasing short-term profit, they don’t even have the vision for long-term profits.”
The approach hurts music in both the artistic and commercial sense, Clyne said. That was distasteful and uncomfortable for the Refreshments.
Major labels are oriented around single hit songs. Artist development and longer-term projects are no longer focuses with the labels. Clyne pointed to Bruce Springsteen’s relatively rocky start as an example. His label didn’t abandon him and eventually had a huge star. Likewise, the Peacemakers do not want to evaluate themselves based on quarterly performance or on quantity over quality.
That history set the stage for the Peacemakers, whose appeal goes far beyond the music and into their fight not only to survive but to thrive as independents with a dedicated fan base. They would rather answer to themselves and their fans than stockholders.
“From that, we have the strength to do what we’re doing,” Clyne said. “The validity of that (their work) will carry the commerce.…
“Art and commerce intertwine, if not collide, but I’m more concerned with making music than selling it.…
“We still believe in our manifesto, quality should always supersede quantity.”
Making it without label support is tough without the legalized “payola” required to get onto the radio and into retail outlets; but going it on their own, the Peacemakers are tenacious and innovative.
Everyone who attends one of their shows receives a copy of Sonoran Hope and Madness. After running “Soundscan” software, which tracks record sales, in Chicago, the Peacemakers discovered they had sold about 130 albums there. Their live show there drew 650 people. They wanted to make sure all of those fans had access to their music, hoping first-time spectators would fall in love and want to come back.
For those who already own the CD, it’s a way to thank them for going through the hurdles it takes to find the CD. The Peacemakers encourage those fans to pass the CD on to friends and help spread the music the best way, by word of mouth.
The CD is difficult to get through retail — Locally it’s available through the Internet, at Face the Music in Eugene, at Music Millennium in Portland and at Best Buy outlets. The Peacemakers figured they owe their audience.
Neither their past with a major record label nor the challenges competing now as independents have made the Peacemakers bitter. They would work with a major label, Clyne said, but the labels will need to come to the Peacemakers. A major label would need to make an offer that put the art first.
Still, that past is the “crucible” in which the Peacemakers were formed. The Peacemakers bring their uncompromising independence to the stage and the studio. Their music is streaked with that independence, originality and trademark humor.
The problems within the music industry lean in other directions as well, and they are even older than the Refreshments problems. Jack Russell, lead singer of Great White, which had a top-10 hit in 1989 with “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” explained a couple of years ago that when a new band hits, the labels jump on the sound and start signing and forcing bands to fashion themselves after the latest fad. When the sound gets old, the clones are dropped, something that’s not fair to the bands or the customer.
That happened with the 1980s hair bands and the Seattle sound of the early 1990s. It’s happening now.
Since the Refreshments, Clyne has offered upbeat, tongue-in-cheek music, in sharp contrast to the music that was popular in 1996. The Peacemakers offer the same contrast to the clones dominating the music scene right now.
Some dub the Peacemakers’ music Americana, whatever that means. The Peacemakers combine elements of country, mariachi, swing, old-fashioned hard rock and anything else they can grab onto, true alternative.
The Peacemakers draw their sound from what Clyne calls the “four basic food groups of rock ‘n’ roll,” vocals, drums, bass and guitar. The music remains light. It breaks new ground with each CD but is always stamped clearly from the Peacemakers mold.
Clyne’s earliest influences were punk. He credits Bob Marley, John Mellencamp and Springsteen as his biggest influences. He also gives a nod to a host of minor influences, like Camper Van Beethoven, which later spawned Cracker, and They Might be Giants.
Lyrically, Clyne can turn a phrase like few others, offering subtle satire or blatant comedy. Clyne constantly plays with words, creating humorous and intriguing paradoxes more beautiful than perfect or stealing honesty and charity from a tip jar on Sonoran Hope and Madness.
The Peacemakers infuse the same lyrical humor with a more serious, socially conscious side that stresses individual responsibility, walking a line between hypocrisy and self-righteousness without being preachy.
“I don’t know what to call it,” Clyne said of his own music. The music has many influences. In the case of Marley it is the searing messages that underlie relaxed reggae groove. “I’m rooted firmly in the desert. I’ve always loved the influence of mariachi on desert music,” and that is incorporated throughout Sonoran Hope and Madness.
Songs, like“Buffalo,” share the majesty of the Southwestern deserts and paint vivid portraits, even as they offer warnings about “progress.”
The Peacemakers, featuring Clyne, Naffah, bassist Danny White, former Dead Hot Workshop guitarist Steve Larson and Gin Blossoms guitarist Scotty Johnson, have played Oregon twice already with their new CD. They will be back on Oct. 19.
Fans are not coming because of a label’s marketing and advertising scheme, Clyne said. They’re at the Peacemakers shows because they love the music.
Those fans and the band have more heart than most, and that’s what makes their shows so addictive.
For more information about Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, visit http://www.azpeacemakers.com.