Nina Gordon is best known as a former member of alt rockers Veruca Salt, but that may soon change with the recent release of her solo debut Tonight And The Rest Of My Life (Warner Bros.). Gordon wrote both of Veruca Salt's hit singles ("Seether" from American Thighs and "Volcano Girls" from Eight Arms To Hold You) and you can hear echoes of them throughout Tonight. What you don't hear is the crunching bombast of Veruca Salt (well what do you expect from a band that named it's debut album in reference to an AC/DC lyric). In it's place, Gordon gives us pretty, clean and shimmery pop songs that manage to sound both sophisticated and fun. It's a dramatic transformation that allows Gordon to really show off her pop chops in ways she hasn't previously. Toast recently talked to Nina about taking the road from rock goddess to pop chanteuse.
Toast: What Happened with Veruca Salt?
Nina Gordon: Basically, there was just a growing dissatisfaction with the way things were working. I think there were always many conflicting opinions in the band and that got be overwhelming. When we all saw eye-to-eye, particularly when Louise and I saw eye-to-eye, it was a totally magical experience, much like a romantic relationship can be. Like when you first meet somebody and you can't believe somebody else looks at the world the same way you do and you're just completely enamored and you just can't believe it. But then , you know, at some point in the relationship, you realize, this person isn't exactly like me and you don't see eye-to-eye and that can be a devastating thing. And then you sort of find a balance and that's what a relationship is. It got to the point in Veruca Salt where there were fewer and fewer magical moments and more frustrating moments. It just seemed like it was time to make a change because we had been together as a band for about six years and it seemed like it was time for me to forge my own path.
Toast: Were the differences primarily musical or personal?
NG: I think it was mostly musical. It was mostly a creative thing. It was, especially with the last album, Eight Arms To Hold You, it was a tug-of-war a lot of the time. And everyone was satisfied as an individual, as an artist, but everyone was compromising. I was really afraid to leave, but I knew in my gut that it was time for a change.
Toast: How was your approach to songwriting different for this record?
NG: I don't think my approach was really any different. I write songs when I'm feeling some sort of dissonance or chaos or the feeling of being unsettled or unsure about something. Or, particularly, if I'm completely happy about something. But if there's an extreme emotion I'm feeling or some sort of confusion or dissonance, I definitely turn to my guitar. I'll start to play and either something will happen or something won't happen and then I'll put my guitar down and go do something else. [With Tonight and The Rest Of My Life] my approach wasn't different, it was more in the editing process and the recording process that I found most of the differences. It was that I didn't feel that I needed to conform my songs to fit anybody else's opinion of what a song should be or the way a song should be arranged. I didn't feel like I needed to edit myself. That was very different, but the actual impetus to write a song was the same and the process was the same. [It was] in the aftermath, when I was actually going through the songs and figuring out what I wanted to record and how I wanted to record it, that I felt a sense of freedom and I felt I was reaping the benefits of my very difficult decision [in leaving Veruca Salt].
Toast: Part of the reason I ask that is that this record seems much more "pop" than the "rock" of Veruca Salt.
NG: I think everyone had always sort of pegged me as the "pop" chick and Louise as the "rock" chick and we both sort of crossed over into each others so-called territory, but pop has always been the thing I love. When I say "pop", I mean good, strong songs with good, strong melodies. Veruca Salt sort of got out of control and they kept going in a kind of metal direction, which was fun. It was fun to wear, like the leather jumpsuits we wore on the second tour, but it didn't feel completelyÉyou know what, it did. It did feel completely right at the time. At the time it felt awesome. It felt totally bad-ass cool. But I grew up a little bit and I think I'm more interested in, I don't know, being myself.
Toast: Well, I don't mean in this a negative way, but this album sounds much more mature or adult.
NG: Well, you know, I turned 30, I left my band, I broke up with my long-term boyfriend, the guy I thought I was going to marry and have babies with, all within a couple months. So, yeah, I was sort of forced to grow up pretty fast.
Toast: Was it a fun album to make, you know, spending 7 months in Hawaii?
NG: It was amazing. It was honestly the best experience of my life. I was living in Maui, recording with Bob Rock, who I respect enormously, working with musicians who I respect enormously. I was just completely at peace. It was such a great experience to be able to explore these songs in a completely new way, without any boundaries. My boyfriend was there, he was also the drummer. I was just completely happy, at peace, satisfied, thrilled, everything. It was an awesome experience.
Toast: Are you more comfortable with the role of singer-songwriter than band member?
NG: [As a solo artist] I will clearly surround myself with great musicians, people that I really like, people that I can collaborate with. The album was a collaboration, even though I was at the helm, it really was a collaboration. I chose musicians I respect and who's opinions and creativity I admire. I wanted a lot of input and a lot of support. It's not like I want to go in there and crack the whip and tell everybody what to do. But, at the same time, I did find it very frustrating being in a band where there wasn't one person as a leader and I think things lead to chaos that way. Like I said, when it's great, it's great because everyone is on the same page, but when there's dissonance, it's a mess. It's just a mess. In any other group creative effort, there's a leader. There's a director in a movie or a play. There's somebody that everybody defers to ultimately and that's how decisions get made. Without that, a lot of things fly out of control. So, I enjoyed working in a situation where there was a little more sanity and a little less drama. And the drama, to me, should be in the songs and in the recording and in the music, but not in the personal relationships and not in the technical side of things or not the actual recording process. It should be in the music.
Toast: What's the key difference between Nina Gordon now and five years ago?
NG: A friend of mine said ÔYou're so different now. I always had the sense that you were looking over your shoulder all the time, that you were worried and concerned and stressing about things.' A lot of this does have to do with age, with growing up a little bit, but it also has to do with sort of cleaning house and getting rid of some relationships that were not healthy and some old patterns in my life that were not healthy. I just feel like I'm more centered and less worried. I was a world-class obsessor, over details and thing I couldn't change. I was just wasting my time. So, I think the major change is that I don't waste as much time anymore.
Toast: Are you going to go on tour?
NG: I think I'll probably be going on tour in September. Over the summer I'm not really going to do much of anything. I'm doing a bunch of interviews, doing a bunch of promo stuff, playing some sort of mellow, acoustic kinds of things and just get my feet wet.
Toast: Are you putting a band together or is it the same one from the record?
NG: I have a band together and it's a couple of the people who played on the record and a couple of new people. It's all people that I love and am excited to hang out with and play with. That's an amazing thing. For all of our charm in Veruca Salt, we were really not great players, with the exception of Steve [Lack], who I think was a really good bass player and Stacy [Jones], who later joined the band, is a great drummer. But Jim [Shapiro], my brother, when he started playing the drums, I mean that was the first time he'd ever played the drums. He was great and I think that was the spirit of our band, kind of do it yourself, charmingly off-kilter kind of sound. But it is pretty exciting to be able to make a record and know that you're playing with people who are truly great and proficient on their instruments. Again, I'm not casting aspersions on any of Veruca Salt, because I love them and I love what they sound like and I loved the way we played live. I think it was awesome, but I don't think anyone would have said that we were a particularly tight band. They would have said they loved our spirit and our sound and all that, but I don't think they would have said we were tight. [Bjorn Cahill, Jr.]
if you liked that interview check out toast magazine.
FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?
NG: Yes. Basically I wait until the spirit moves me and generally the spirit that moves me is one of confusion and chaos and dissonance. Sometimes it’s excitement and happiness and I sit down and play guitar and either I’m inspired to sing something or I just sit there and think, “Hmm. This really isn’t working.” and I go and do something else. But generally it’s just a very organic kind of thing. I just play chords and either I sing something that is meaningful to me or I sing something that sounds like somebody else and I say, “Alright. It’s not happening today.” Generally when it does happen it’s melody. I’ll play the chords and sing the melody and sort of mumble some words and then those mumbled words will form themselves into thoughts or actual lyrics. If it feels good then I pursue it, and I keep going and then I write a song. But if it doesn’t feel good then I just sort of let it slide.
FEMMUSIC: How did you meet with Bob Rock? and how did you end up recording the CD in Hawaii?
NG: Very simply I wanted to work with Bob Rock who produced the last album that I made with Veruca Salt. He and I worked really well together, and I knew that I wanted to record this album with him. He lives in Maui and he has a studio in Maui so if you work with him you basically go to Hawaii. Which is not a bad side effect.
FEMMUSIC: Were you making repeated trips? I noticed this was taking seven months?
NG: No I stayed there the whole time. In fact I stayed there longer than that because my boyfriend’s band also ended up recording with Bob and so he was there too. I basically spent about a year on Maui, which was heavenly. And because I was recording over the winter. I live in Chicago, so I missed the Chicago winter and I know that the album would have sounded completely different if I’d made it in Chicago. I think it was really important for me to go away and get sort of far away from everything that I knew previously. And there’s something very uplifting and peaceful and hopeful and spiritual about being on an island in the middle of nowhere with this vast endless ocean all around you, and mountains all around you. If definitely gives you a sense of hope, endlessness, limitlessness.
FEMMUSIC: In regards to the sound of the album, after coming from Veruca Salt this is definitely a different sound for you. NG: I’ve done a bunch of interviews and I have been told this, but I know that it is a departure and yet I believe that if you took the songs that I had written in Veruca Salt. And if you took them out of context and put them on a disk with these songs that are on this album I don’t think it would like as drastic a leap as you think. I always wrote ballads, and I always wrote pop songs. The one thing that I know is different is that I think that I’m a lot more open with my lyrics and open with my voice but in terms of songwriting the process is still the same and the things that excite me about songs are still the same i.e. melody.
FEMMUSIC: What was your biggest challenge making Tonight and The Rest of Your Life?
NG: Honestly it what was whittling down this enormous list of songs to one album. I had so many songs. As a songwriter, not to compare myself to one of my truest, greatest heroes who is George Harrison. I imagine after he first went to write All Thing Must Pass he’d been sort of stifled within the Beatles because he only got one song or two songs per album, and then suddenly he had this vast number of songs. It’s kind of a similar thing because Louise and I were both the songwriters in the band and so we sort of split the albums. They were generally about six of my songs and six of her songs. So were constantly having to let go of songs that we had written and not record them. In this case I ended up recording a lot of songs and the biggest challenge was figuring out which ones were the best and the ones that I was going to feel the most connected to for the longest period of time.
FEMMUSIC: What one thing would you like to see changed about the music industry?
NG: That’s a good question. I suppose I would like songs or albums and artists wouldn’t necessarily be presented to the mainstream because they’re considered not “pop” enough or something like that. I would like those certain bands to be brought to the forefront because I think that I would like to think that the public is a little smarter and a little more open to different kinds of music. There are so many bands that just get stuck in this indie ghetto or this experimental ghetto where nobody in the real world hears their music. So much of it is so beautiful that I feel like that it should be shared but at the same time I think maybe people aren’t that open aren’t that deep maybe they just want the simplest TV commercials and TV theme songs for their pop music. But I think there are little glimmers of hope when Aimee Mann starts doing well you know something really good is happening because that is not music that you would initially think, “Oh yeah! That’s going to straight on the radio.” Yet people are really touched by her music. I think that’s a really positive sign.
FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry, have you been discriminated against?
NG: I don’t think so. I have not felt discriminated against. I’ve felt very supported and respected. The one thing that sometimes comes into play when you’re a woman and you’re making pop music and your record label is going to radio stations and saying, “Will you play this song by this female artist?” And they say, “No. We have too many female songs on right now. We need some more men on this station, or we need…” And really what that means is they’re playing like two women. And that’s just frustrating that it’s like that if you’ve got two female artists in heavy rotation that that’s too many, but I don’t feel that that’s necessarily discrimination it’s just people trying to gauge what the public want and, “do men want to listen to women”, “do women want to listen to women. I don’t know. I don’t know how it works.
No. In answer to your question I do feel discriminated against. Definitely not.
FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?
NG: Well there are two pieces of advice. One is to be sure that you’re making music that you can stand behind. You’re not writing music for anybody else. You’re not writing music for what you think is the current taste of the people out there because you can never gauge that, and people are very fickle, and you really have to write music that is really very meaningful and powerful to you and hope that it translates and other people feel that way too.
The second part of advice would be just play that music for everyone you possibly can, and don’t shut up about it until something happens. That means playing as many shows as you can. Going to open mics if you don’t have a band. Going to bars and playing on open mic night and playing songs and giving tapes to people. Just being obnoxious about it, and playing it for everyone that will listen and even those that won’t listen. Hopefully it will enter the right pair of ears and somebody will snatch you up and exploit you. (laughing) Just kidding.
But there are so many ways especially now with the Internet people can put their music out there. Get wider and wider audience and people who would have never heard your music can instantly someone in Israel can be listening to someone’s band from Ohio. It’s a pretty cool thing. The key is to keep going and not shut up about it until something happens.
FEMMUSIC: What are your plans for the future?
NG: My plans for the future are in immediate future; I’m going off to Los Angles. I’m playing The Tonight Show on Tuesday night (August 8), which I’m fairly nervous about. After that I’m playing some of more promotional kind of shows then I’m going off to Japan and Australia to do promo touring and then I’ll be back in the states and probably touring for real at the end of October and playing at a rock club near you.
if you liked this interview check out femmusic.com, the place for emerging women in music.
Don't forget to check out the interview I did with Nina!
It's taken awhile, but Nina Gordon is finally planning to tour to support her new album, "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life," released in June.
According to an audio message from Gordon on her official Web site, she'll be heading out on the road for a seven-week jaunt starting October 24 and ending December 15. Sources close to the artist confirmed that Gordon will indeed headline her own tour, although a spokesperson for Gordon's management told MTV News that the details are still being worked out.
The former Veruca Salt singer has put together a new band that so far includes her beau Stacy Jones on drums, Mike Eisenstein (Letters To Cleo) on guitar, Josh Lattanzi on bass, and Patrick Warren on keyboards.
The group has already played a couple of small warm-up radio concerts and put in an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," but the pending road trip will be the band's first major outing. (Tentative plans to open for Savage Garden earlier this summer were scrapped.)
Gordon may wind up heading out on tour without Jones, however. Jones, who played drums for Letters To Cleo and briefly handled the skins for Veruca Salt prior to Gordon's split with Louise Post (who retains the Veruca name), now handles guitar and vocals for American Hi-Fi. That band, which also features former Fig Dish drummer Brian Nolan, former Tracy Bonham bassist Drew Parsons, and ex-Sky Heroes guitarist Jamie Arentzen, is preparing to release its own self-titled album at the end of January. American Hi-Fi's management told MTV News that Jones is expected to be busy with promotional and other duties at the same time as Gordon's tour.
Formerly called BMX Girl and now signed to Island/Def Jam, American Hi-Fi recorded its upcoming album late last summer with veteran producer Bob Rock, who also produced Gordon's solo effort as well as Veruca Salt's "Eight Arms To Hold You," the band's final album with Gordon.
American Hi-Fi has a show scheduled for Saturday night at a TT The Bear's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a handful of other dates are on tap for later this month.
Gordon's next appearance, meanwhile, will be on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" on September 8.
Excerpt from MTV.com
09/01/00
This is such a lame article out of the August 2000 issue of Alternative Press. I have put a ! by all the lyrical mistakes. Some lyrics are out of order and I don't feel like ! ing all of them.
When Veruca Salt founders Nina Gordon and Louise Post severed their partnership in an ocean of acrimony, A.P. was ready document the fallout. The News Desk has discovered that if you listen to Veruca Salt's Resolver (Beyond) and Gordon's Tonight and the Rest of My Life (Warner Bros) on a corresponding track-to-track sequence, a conversation behind the break-up unfolds!
Louise: I'm not the same anymore, and I don't feel that way anymore.
Nina: I understand everything, and now I can die/
Nina: Right from my head to my toes. That's the way it goes. And you're the first to know, I've got a brillant plan, I hope you understand.
Louise: You couldn't be any cuter, you couldn't be any cooler.
Louise: I'm not afraid of the ocean, afraid of devotion. And I've got the balls to prove it.
Nina: I feel so alive!, tonight and the rest of my life.
Louise: Say your prayers, 'cause you've got enemies everywhere.
Nina: I'm in a bad way, so go away.
Louise: I know you've placed your bets by the way you ! watch my sweat.
Nina: I wonder if I'll live long enough to feel again?
Louise: Can I help it if I'm high strung? Can I help it if I was born with a sharp tongue?
Nina: We're the same and you don't even know it. You're tired and I am too. So there is only one thing we can do... Am I the only one that thinks that last one is rank?
Nina: Now I'm all alone and you know I like it.
Louise: Don't blame me for sinking the ship. You're a worthless! liar and a hypocrite.
Nina: I should probably sorta miss you.
Louise: Disconnected is the way ! I wanted it to be.
Louise: I'm all dressed up to be what you wanted me to be. You don't even care.
Nina: This is the way it's gonna be. It's time for me get up off the ground.
Nina: Now another bride! has turned to gray.
Louise: I used to know her. I used to stick up for her.
Nina: Had to sell my soul, but you were so rock and roll. I hate your way a little more everyday.
Louise: Boys will be boys. Girls can't avoid pretty boys.
Louise: Is this the kinda thing we always feared? Are you so bent on hell that you'd leave me up here?
Nina: I wake up in the morning and I wonder.
CONCLUSION: Girls! Life is too short for bad feelings or bad music. Bartender, get us a round of hugs on the house!
CLICK HERE FOR SCAN OF ARTICLE
07/02/00
Rock band's former co-frontwoman goes pop on solo debut.
Contributing Editor Mark Woodlief reports:
On the eve of the release of her first solo album,Tonight and the Rest of My Life, former Veruca Salt co-frontwoman Nina Gordon remembered how liberating it felt to leave behind the tense situation with her old band.
"It was pretty miraculous how quickly I adjusted," the vocalist and guitarist said. "And that's why I know it was the right decision for me to leave the band, because almost instantly I felt the weight of the world sort of fall away, and I suddenly felt extremely free and streamlined."
Tonight and the Rest of My Life establishes Gordon's departure from the brash Veruca Salt style, characterized by songs such as "Seether". The singer fully gives in to the trembling sweetness in her voice, and the record's evolving, often-orchestral sound marks her arrival in territory closer to Aimee Mann's new Bachelor No. 2 than Veruca Salt's latest, Resolver.
The record marks profound changes in Gordon's life: the dissolution of her relationship with her best friend and Veruca Salt co-founder and frontwoman Louise Post (who is continuing the band with all-new personnel and a markedly harder rock sound); a new-ish boyfriend, former Veruca Salt drummer Stacy Jones; and a change of record labels that left her album — originally scheduled for release last August — in limbo for 10 months. Tonight also reveals in Gordon the confidence that comes from moving on to better things.
In 1999, Gordon's label, Outpost/Geffen, was folded into the Interscope label in a corporate merger, and Outpost and Interscope were "feuding," according to Gordon. The restructuring was threatening to hold up Tonight and the Rest of My Life. The singer felt caught in the middle and wanted out of her deal.
With a kind of determination befitting her newfound confidence, Gordon took charge. "I had to get out," she said. Ultimately, she landed at Warner Bros. "It was definitely the smartest and best thing that could've happened. Now it's a total love affair between me and my record label, which has never happened to me before. So I'm psyched."
The feeling is mutual, Peter Standish, Warner Bros.' vice president of marketing, said. "I think she has a real passion for what she's doing," Standish said. "And it comes across both in the music and in the work she's doing to let people know about this record. She has a positive attitude. We love the music, and we love her, and we feel lucky to work with someone as talented as she is."
That kind of support buoys Gordon as she enters a new phase in her career. The singer was always the more pop-oriented member of Veruca Salt, compared with Post, whose musical inclinations leaned toward stadium-rock and metal. Making a solo album allowed Gordon to fulfill her own pop vision.
"I chose to leave the nest and go off and do my own thing. Really, everything is very different," Gordon said. "That's not to say that I never looked back and never had any doubts, but overall, it was a totally positive thing."
That blend of vulnerability, doubt and confidence punctuates Tonight, particularly on the Sarah McLachlan-like title track , with a melancholic melody that underscores Gordon's optimistic chorus: "I feel so light/ This is all I want to feel tonight."
The poignant "Got Me Down," a farewell to an ex, expresses a similar sentiment as Gordon sings, "Tell me when it's over/ And it's time for me to get up off the ground." On the driving love song "2003", Gordon can't wait for the future to arrive; but on the biting "Badway," she sings, "I can't get dressed when I'm this low." "I was realizing the other day that the [album's] first three songs are these positive, forward-looking, sort of empowered-feeling songs," Gordon said. "Then on the fourth song ['Badway'], I just do a nosedive — it's like, 'Sorry, it can't last. ' "
Record's Personnel Make The Difference
When it came time to capture her emotional, personal songs in the studio, Gordon turned to producer Bob Rock, who had worked with Veruca Salt on 1997's Eight Arms To Hold You. "I knew that he and I really did have a similar take on things, musically," Gordon said.
With a supporting cast that included Jones, his former Letters To Cleo bandmate Michael Eisenstein and Gordon's brother, original Veruca Salt drummer Jim Shapiro, Gordon felt liberated from a band format. "We could explore things that we wouldn't ordinarily explore or that we never really thought to explore in the band," she said. "It was a much more free environment, and things happened that I don't think would've happened had there been this very rigid band structure."
Gordon also marveled at the assistance from L.A. producer and session musician Jon Brion, who played a variety of keyboards and guitar.
"As far as I'm concerned, he's a genius," Gordon said. "He would go and play the strangest stuff, and sometimes we'd all be scratching our heads, wondering, 'What is he doing? This doesn't make sense.' But when we mixed the record we realized that whatever he had done had just made the song."
While Gordon admits making the album was "very collaborative," she's proud that Tonight and the Rest of My Life essentially boils down to her singular vision.
"Ultimately, while everybody was playing around with ideas, I got to listen and say, 'I like this,' or 'I don't like this,' " she said. "I got the final say, and it's much easier than getting in a room with four people and making everyone agree somehow. It's much easier to have one person saying, 'Yes, no, maybe.' "
-- Mark Woodlief
This article is from Mtv.com and sonicnet.com
06/30/00
When she left Veruca Salt two years ago, Nina Gordon knew that she was giving up a bankable name and setting herself on the tough, tricky task of establishing her identity as a solo artist — even though she wrote the group's two biggest hits, "Seether" and "Volcano Girls." But Gordon, who also broke up with a boyfriend at around the same time, says she quickly found the prospect more exciting than daunting.
"I suddenly felt a freedom I've never experienced before, a lightness and levity in my life," says Gordon, 32, who has just released her solo debut, Tonight and the Rest of My Life. "I was writing like crazy. A lot of songs sounded like Veruca Salt songs, and some were written in the past, and a lot of them sounded different. I just kept writing, and at a certain point I thought, 'There's definitely an album here.'
"At that point, I sent them to [producer] Bob Rock, who I wanted to work with very badly, and said, 'Let's do this.'" Fans of her previous band will likely be surprised by much of the material on Tonight. Though a few of the tracks have a familiar, rocking energy, Gordon seethes less, concentrating instead on rich, melodic pop fare and harmonies — elements she says were definitely present but often overlooked during her tenure with Veruca Salt.
"It was always applied to the mix," Gordon says. "I could take this group of songs I've recorded for this album, take a couple of songs from each of the Veruca Salt albums, mix them up, and you'd not be aware of the jump I made stylistically.
"We thought of ourselves as pop-rock music; it seemed funny to us that it was called alternative," she adds. "That made no sense at all. But at the same time, I know I made a record that was more mainstream, for lack of a better word. And I've sort of enjoyed how different people think this is. I do see it as a new beginning for me, so, yeah, I'm totally happy." — Gary Graff
This can be found at Wall Of Sound
06/28/00
Nina Gordon's "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" (Warner Bros.) is the artist's solo debut after exiting Veruca Salt, the alternative rock band she founded with Louise Post in 1993.
"It's been very liberating, challenging, and gratifying," says Gordon of her departure from Veruca Salt. "I feel more at peace, more at ease, more myself. It's more aerodynamic when you're on your own. It's also more of a risk. If I fail or succeed, I know it's all me. There are no compromises. In the end, it's a win-win situation."
The album was produced by Bob Rock (Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Veruca Salt) and features contributions from artist/producer Jon Brion, and three current and former members of Letters To Cleo: drummer Stacy Jones (who also played with Veruca Salt), guitarist Michael Eisenstein, and bassist Scott Riebling
This can be found at billboard.com
06/27/00
Contributing Editor Will Comerford reports:
Solo debuts from former members of the Verve and Veruca Salt top this week's list of rock releases.
For Nina Gordon, who left Veruca Salt in 1998, Tonight and the Rest of My Life was a long time coming. The LP was delayed for more than a year when restructuring at Geffen motivated her to move to Warner Bros.
Gordon, who shared vocals with ex-bandmate Louise Post on Veruca Salt's 1994 hit "Seether," said she enjoyed writing and recording as a solo artist.
"It was a much more free environment," she said. "Things happened that I don't think would've happened had there been this very rigid band structure."
The singer has created a light, pop sound on the album, moving from love songs such as "2003" to the melancholic title track.
This excerpt is care of Sonicnet
06/26/00
From www.billboard.com when Nina was the artist of the day June 2nd, 2000.
By Michael Paoletta
NEW YORK -- Two years ago, after writing and singing on hits like "Seether" and "Volcano Girls," singer/songwriter/guitarist Nina Gordon divorced herself from Veruca Salt, a band she co-founded. Today, she's preparing for the release of her solo debut album, "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life," which Warner Bros. will have in stores June 27.
"It's been very liberating, challenging, and gratifying," says Gordon of her departure from Veruca Salt. "I feel more at peace, more at ease, more myself. It's more aerodynamic when you're on your own. It's also more of a risk. If I fail or succeed, I know it's all me. There are no compromises. In the end, it's a win-win situation."
Notes Phil Quartararo, president of Warner Bros. Records, "I fell in love with this album immediately. Each song stands out as something special. Nina's a smart and brilliant songwriter, and she's a star."
Produced by Bob Rock (Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Veruca Salt) -- with contributions from artist/producer Jon Brion, drummer Stacy Jones, guitarist Michael Eisenstein, and bassist Scott Riebling -- "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" finds Gordon delivering a solid, powerful pop set.
Songs like "Badway," "Hold On To Me," "Number One Camera," "Got Me Down," "Hate Your Way," and the title track, which is the set's first single, resonate with lingering melodies and vulnerable lyrics. Those expecting, or looking forward to, a crypto-Veruca Salt experience had best look elsewhere.
"Then, I think I was more inspired by writing a song around a cool word -- and singing like a girl who could kinda sing," explains Gordon. "Now, it's pretty much the exact opposite."
Gordon says she had no external influences during the recording of the album, which took place in Maui, Hawaii. "It was pretty much me and the people supporting me. And this process proved to be much better and easier for the whole music-making process.
"In a band situation, every little decision is monumental," Gordon continues. "Whether it was deciding what to eat for dinner or what chorus to cut out of a song, everything became dramatic and traumatic. To say that there's less drama in my life would be an understatement."
According to Peter Standish, VP of marketing at Warner Bros., Gordon has been on "a nonstop tour of radio, press, retail, and Internet sites" since late February. "And this will continue through June."
Because of the album's radio-friendly sound, Standish says, radio has played and will continue to play an "important and crucial role" in the marketing of Gordon. The set's first single, the title track, shipped as a noncommercial release to radio the week of May 22.
A video for "Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" was recently directed by Kate Garner, who also did all the photo work for Gordon's CD booklet, advertising, and merchandising.
While a tour is not confirmed at present, Warner Bros. is optimistic about seeing Gordon on the road in the very near future. "We really want to see how radio reacts to the single before we move ahead with a tour," says Standish.
"Tonight And The Rest Of My Life" (Warner Brothers)
This is music made for the best reason possible: the sheer love of it. Co-founder of Veruca Salt, the beautiful Nina Gordon weaves passion and talent to create lingering melodies and truthful lyrics that are both timely and timeless.
May 30th, 2000
This excerpt is from Alternative Press issue July 2000
Ex-Veruca Salt-er has gone her own was after the well-publicized falling out with her former bandmate Louise Post. On Gordon's solo debut, Tonight and the Rest of My Life (Warner Bros.), the cheery pop-rock confections will remind fans of her pedigree, but the new songs also have a clarity and toned-down grrlishness for today's listeners. "'Fade To Black' feels good to me as a songwriter. It feels good in my throat," says Gordon of the stand-out track. Producer Bob Rock (who worked on Eight Arms To Hold You, Gordon's final album with Veruca Salt) had a lot to do with the sound. "It was a real collaboration," she adds. And after a nine-month delay in the album's release due to label wrangles, Gordon is ready to take this baby to the streets. "It's been like having my child in quarantine," she grins. "I'm excited to let loose." [RD]
This excerpt is from Spin issue June 2000
Veruca's Resolver is a reminder that, as Nina once sang, "the Seether's Louise"; angry, rumbling, with almost every song about a bad breakup, wink wink. "I'm allowed now to become an adult," Post says via phone. But she also waxes about the dream: "Women staying together, not selling each other out - shit, we choked."
Nina Gordon's Tonight and the Rest of My Life, finally, bets everything on the timeless seduction of girl pop: love me, love me, I'll give you candy and a billion harmony tracks. It's a winner wager. Opener "Now I Can Die" is as hook-laden as a night at the Apollo, and astonishing in how completely it erases her rock conception to make room for some dreamboat: "I am the girl and he is the guy," she coos, beautiful and apparently irony-free. "I never dared to be simple and wise / Surprise, surprise, he opened up my eyes / I understand everything, and now i can die." Another great pop song, another success story for the single girl...
After what appeared to be a dry spell of any sort of Nina information, beside a few rumors, there is something seemingly legitimate to look forward too. On the morning of April 6th on WFNX in Boston DJ Angie C told listeners that she ran into Stacy Jones, Veruca Salt's old drummer and Nina's drummer on her solo album. According to Jones Nina will be doing a 60 date tour this summer that will coincide with the release of her solo debut "Tonight and the Rest of My Life", also sometime this summer. On a related note, I also receive verification that Nina Gordon is on Warner Brothers label, although I am still not clear on which division.
Stacy Jones information was courtesy of Kym.
Record label info was my hard research, credit my site with a link if you use it.
04/06/2000
"It's going to come out, but we're not putting it out."
This is sad news for fans of Nina Gordon who have been eagerly awaiting a street date. Ultimately this will lead to further delays of her album or cancellation of the album completely. Juliana Hatfield has encountered the same dilemma, unfortunately her CD was never released.
01/26/2000
This information is second hand, if someone has a correction or has additional info please email me.
Thank you to Michael for this brief statement
Thanks again to Sonicnet for this wicked articule:
This hit Sonicnet 10/31/99
(Editor's Note: The "Sunday Morning" essay is an opinion piece and does not reflect the views of SonicNet Inc. or its affiliated companies.)
Editorial Director Michael Goldberg writes:
One of the best albums I've heard this year won't even be released until sometime in 2000.
I'm talking about the debut solo LP from former Veruca Salt guitarist and singer/songwriter Nina Gordon.
I've been listening to the disc, Tonight and the Rest of My Life, since July. It's a beautiful pop CD, and at first that really threw me for a loop.
I was expecting a rock album from Gordon.
Veruca Salt were an indie band out of Chicago whose awesome debut, American Thighs, was produced by Brad Wood (Liz Phair, Ben Lee). Their big hit was "Seether", which Gordon wrote.
When I hung out with the band back in '95, shortly after "Seether" had put them on the map, Gordon impressed me as a real rocker. She played a Gibson SG guitar and played Keith Richards to Louise Post's Mick Jagger.
I dug Gordon's and Post's vocals, but for some reason I never thought of Gordon as a real singer. She was a rocker who sang. But with Tonight and the Rest of My Life, she reveals herself to be a noteworthy vocalist, who can convincingly deliver big pop songs along with a few rockers ("Black and Blonde") that are reminiscent of her contributions to American Thighs.
The new record reminds me of the best work by the Bangles and the Go-Go's, "girl groups" that delivered a female take on mid-'60s Beatles-esque pop. But Gordon's album is more lush. Bob Rock, known for his work with Metallica and Aerosmith, produced the disc (he also produced Veruca Salt's second — and underrated — album, Eight Arms to Hold You.)
Songs such as "Hold On to Me" are intimate love ballads ("When we're apart I still feel together/ I still believe in a thing called forever/ But we're drifting apart it's true/ And it's breaking my heart in two") that are loaded with hooks.
On the page, those lyrics may look clichéd, but like a paramour delivering the words "I love you," Gordon makes them sound as if they're being voiced for the first time.
She wrote the songs shortly after breaking up with both a boyfriend of four years and her best friend, Louise Post, with whom she had formed Veruca Salt in 1991. "I was totally dealing with leaving the band when I was writing this album," Gordon told SonicNet Senior Writer Gil Kaufman earlier this year.
"I was feeling a lot at that time. I had a lot of feelings," she continued. "And I had to somehow deal with them. I know it's a cliché, but you take those feelings and do something productive with them, although you don't realize ... that you're doing something productive — you're just reaching for something that might console you".
Much of the album is about dealing with the end of a relationship. "It feels like a movie," she sings, " 'cause I've done something heavy and now I'm all alone and you know I like it ... / What's done is done/ I can't blame anyone but me."
Some may look at Gordon's pop move as a betrayal of her alternative credentials. I don't see it that way. The Beatles were, at one time, both the biggest band in the world and one of the most creative. They made music that both mattered and reached an audience. Gordon has grown up, and so has her music. The safe thing to do would have been to make a raw, indie album. With Tonight and the Rest of My Life she takes chances, and the result is something to behold.
The LP closes with the moody rocker "Hate Your Way," a kind of hate song to a former lover. It's also a highlight of the album. "I hate your way/ I don't care what you say/ I hate your way/ I don't care/ And I'm only half there/ So I don't care ... / They can cut me down 'til I'm the talk of the town/ I'm a fool for you/ Had to sell my soul/ But you were so rock 'n' roll/ I'm a fool for you ... / I hate your way/ A little more every day/ I hate your way/ A little more/ And I could leave but what for/ A little more."
Thanks to Sonicnet for this articule.
Ex-Veruca Salt Leader Finds Consolation On New Album
From the ashes of failed relationships and the breakup of her band, Nina Gordon builds a record all her own.
Senior Writer Gil Kaufman reports:
Just when everything seemed to be falling apart in Veruca Salt co-founder Nina Gordon's life, it all came together.
Within a two-week period last year, Gordon said she broke up both with her boyfriend of four years and with her best friend and bandmate of six years, Veruca Salt singer/guitarist Louise Post. But from the dissolution of her group sprang a new era in her musical career.
"I was totally dealing with leaving the band when I began writing this album," Gordon, 31, said of her upcoming solo debut, Tonight and the Rest of My Life, due in August. "I was feeling a lot at that time. I had a lot of feelings, and I had to somehow deal with them. I know it's a cliché, but you take those feelings and do something productive with them, although you don't realize ... that you're doing something productive -- you're just reaching for something that might console you".
Gordon said she did what came naturally when she had to deal with the sudden March 1998 breakup of the popular rock band: She holed up in her Chicago apartment with a guitar, a practice amp and a notebook, and she began writing songs. "The first couple of months the songs I wrote were really intense and really heavy," Gordon said. "Then I started to loosen up a bit and started feeling good and I wrote some pop songs."
The result is an album produced by Bob Rock (Metallica, Mötley Crüe) that is a mix of the kind of hard-rocking songs Veruca Salt mined on their final album, 1997's Eight Arms to Hold You, also helmed by Rock, and some of the more downbeat hard-pop songs written in the post-Veruca Salt period.
In addition to the title track, Gordon said the album features her pick for the first single, "Horses in the City," as well as "2003" and "Hate Your Way," which she described as "just a slow and driving and heavy ... not-very-up song about hate. I guess hate songs do pretty well, but I don't want to tread on [hates]'s territory."
Tonight and the Rest of My Life was recorded at Rock's Maui, Hawaii, studio over a five-month period beginning late last year and features a number of ex-members of the Boston pop band Letters to Cleo.
In addition to LTC drummer Stacy Jones (who was the drummer in Veruca Salt prior to the breakup), the album features LTC guitarist Michael Eisenstein, ex-Veruca Salt drummer and Gordon's brother Jim Shapiro on guitar, and L.A. producer and session musician Jon Brion on a variety of keyboards and guitar. The album also features keyboard assistance from John Webster, who Gordon was proud to say had played a solo on Aerosmith's hit "Janie's Got a ".
"I love that song," Gordon said of the Aerosmith hit, "and I worked with Bob again because when you drive up to his house, his mailbox says 'Rock.' This is where they deliver the rock!"
More seriously, Gordon said she decided to work with Rock a second time because of the bond they formed during the making of Eight Arms to Hold You. "When I realized I'd be doing a solo record it was a dream to work with him and have him play the role he wanted to play in Veruca but because there was four strong personalities he couldn't."
Gordon first joined forces with guitarist/singer Post in 1991. Veruca Salt (named for a character in the children's classic "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory") first climbed onto the national stage in late 1994, after word-of-mouth adulation for their hard-pop, Wood-produced (Liz Phair) debut, American Thighs, prompted DGC to sign the band and re-release the album.
They rose to stardom after the Gordon-penned "Seether" gained wide exposure on MTV. The band announced its split in March 1998, following a tour in support of Eight Arms to Hold You.
With both Gordon and Post in virtual seclusion since the break up of VS, fans said they were excited for anything new from the band's members. Brianna Jenkins, 17, of New York said she's been waiting forever to hear what Gordon, her favorite of the two, will do on her own.
"I am not even going to try to underestimate her versatility, but I'm thinking of some pretty and melodic buttery ballad type things, mixed in with some loud and dauntless headache rock songs," Jenkins wrote in an e-mail. "All of them catchy of course, but that goes without saying."
Although the singer said fans of Veruca Salt's mix of AC/DC-style rock and hard-edge power pop will recognize that style in such new songs as "Like It Happens Every Day," "Now I Can Die," "Got Me Down" and especially the full-on rocker "Black and Blonde," Gordon said recording a solo album allowed her to stretch her sound in ways Veruca Salt didn't.
"In a band you have to make compromises," Gordon said, alluding to some of the tensions that broke up Veruca Salt. "And on this album we've been able to experiment with a bunch of different things I don't think either one of us has ever been able to do because there's been so many strict rules of a rock band.
"When you're in a band where there has to be guitar on every song because there are two guitar players in the band that want to play guitar. And there has to be backing vocals because there are two singers who want to be singing. It's kind of nice to just be like, 'Maybe this song doesn't need guitar' ".
Album Title: Tonight And The Rest Of My Life Release Date: Mid-August
Nina Gordon has titled her post-Veruca Salt solo album Tonight And The Rest Of My Life, but it's the confusing last 18 months---which included a shattered friendship with her former bandmate Louise Post---that've provided Gordon's inspiration. "I started writing these songs at a time when I was breaking up with my boyfriend of four years, and with Louise, my best friend of the last six years," says Gordon, calling from Hawaii, where she's putting the finishing touches on the album with producer Bob Rock. "I found that writing songs---I'm sorry, I know it's a cliche---kept me afloat."
Gordon says that while the songs are more personal, her pop-rock sound hasn't changed. What she says she likes most is having an entire album to shape, instead of having to share space with someone else. "We were incredibly close, but I think at a certain point we started disapointing each other," Gordon says of Post. "The thing is I don't have to compromise with four people. It's sort of a concept record---and the concept is me." [DD]
This articule was taken from Spin Magazine, the Febuary 1999 issue.
Last year was Nina Gordon's annus horribus. Not only did she break up with her long-term boyfriend, she also ended a six-year creative partnership with onetime best friend Louise Post, her co-frontwoman in Veruca Salt. Needless to say, the experience provided much grist for the songwriting mill. "I was shaving down my roster of friends for a while, so my song literally became my friends," Gordon says by phone from Maui, where she is two weeks into recording her debut solo album with Metallica producer Bob Rock, who also honchoed Veruca Salt's final effort, Eight Arms To Hold You. With a mix of pop smarts and crunching 70's metal riffs, Veruca Salt's update of cock rock detailed the inner lives of what appeared to be two very complicated women. So it wasn't that surprising that the band imploded in late '97, amid rumors that suggest an episode of Alt-Rock Melrose Place."We're not Fleetwood Mac," Gordon says. "We just stopped getting along." Doesn't she want to set the record straight? "Nah. You have to save the gory details for the VH1 Behind The Music special." As the record is still embryonic, Gordon isn't quite sure what path her sound will ultimately take. "I'm making a record with only myself to please," she says. "There won't be any concessions or creative compromises. And that is really gratifying." Tracy Pepper
Veruca Salt's Post and Gordon Racing to Record Stores
Worth Their Salt?
It looks like it will be a race to the finish to see which of the former bandmates/best friends Nina Gordon and Louise Post will get the first post-Veruca Salt album into stores. Because it was Gordon who left the band in a huff last February, Post has been able to retain the name. However, according to a spokesman at DGC Records, "It's not clear whether Louise will keep the name, we'll just have to see." But Post's producer and former member of Filter, Brian Leisegang, insists that she will. In fact, Post's first post-Gordon effort was at one time titled Veruca Salt, Veruca Salt, as a homage to the short-lived but seminal night-time Seventies soap opera, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, reflecting the soap opera aspect of Gordon and Post's parting. According to published reports, the two went their separate ways after Gordon discovered that Post had consoled Gordon's longtime beau, Fig Dish's Blake Smith, after *he* found out that Gordon was making time with newish Veruca Salt drummer Stacy Jones, whom they imported from Letters To Cleo. But back to the music ...
Liesegang said that Post's new record will "showcase a different Veruca Salt," which probably has more to do with the fact that Liesegang has replaced Gordon as Post's new writing partner. The winsome brunette has penned more than thirty songs -- with and without Liesegang -- and has recorded them over the past six months at Liesegang's home studio and at Chicago's Gravity Studios. Although Liesegang was reluctant to divulge any titles, the former Nine Inch Nails programmer did allow that some of the standout tracks were "Disconnected," "South For Summer" and "Salt Flat Epic," a song which he and Post co-wrote about their mutual partings with former co-workers. Liesegang broke from Filter cohort and NIN alum Richard Patrick last year, when the two disagreed over how work was progressing on their follow-up to their platinum debut, Short Bus. As it stands, Filter's album -- minus Leisegang -- is due out late next year.
"This project has been really time-consuming, but we'll be done with the recording process within a month, and then we'll mix the album in January," Liesegang said. "We're totally happy with the music, and I don't think that Veruca Salt fans will be disappointed. The sense of melody is still intact, but there has been growth -- and in some respects, Louise has gone out on a limb." The limb he refers to has to do with some experimental flourishes like backward guitar and mellotron. Liesegang recruited another Filter ex-patriot, Matt Walker, who spent most of last year as the Smashing Pumpkins' touring drummer and recently finished recording an album with his band Cupcakes, to play drums on six of the tracks. Rounding out the line-up is former Triple Fast Action bassist Kevin Tihista (here playing guitar) and Jimmy Medlow on drums. Liesegang plays some guitar on the album, but is not a member of the band. "Right now, it's a three-piece, and later on Louise will pick up a bass player."
In addition to a new line-up and a new producer, Louise Post has also hired a new manager, Ted Gardner, who also guides the fortunes of Hum and Tool -- as well as Liesegang -- and still retains a sizeable percentage of the currently resting Lollapalooza franchise. Liesegang and Post are hoping for an April release, and DGC concurs, explaining that the record "should come out in late spring."
As for Gordon, she is currently in Hawaii working with bombastic producer Bob Rock, who, in addition to being responsible for opuses by Motley Crue, Metallica and Bon Jovi, also produced Veruca Salt's Eight Arms to Hold You. Gordon will remain on the islands until March, when her solo album is scheduled to be completed. According to Geffen, her offering will be out in June and will feature the aforementioned Stacy Jones on drums and Letters to Cleo vets Mike Eisenstein and Scott Riebling on guitar and bass, respectively.
JAAN UHELSZKI
Thanks to Rolling Stone for this articule.
MOST LIKELY TO BE FEATURED IN A BEHIND THE MUSIC SPECIAL: NINA GORDON
Of Salts and Soaps
(November 24, 1998)