Magnapop - Raising The Stakes

The Music Paper
by Alan Sculley
September 1996

Magnapop's newly released third CD, Rubbing Doesn't Help (Priority), musically is the most cohesive and well-rounded collection of songs yet produced by this promising Athens, Georgia-bred band.

The band's brash and catchy style of guitar pop has rarely sounded as potent as on first-rate rockers like "This Family", "Hold You Down", and "Down On Me". Songs like the poppy "Open The Door" and the acoustic ballad "Dead Letter", meanwhile, add considerable depth and diversity to the CD.

But look a bit deeper and there are plenty of clues to what the band members now admit was an unsettling period that preceded the recording of Rubbing Doesn't Help. First off, there's the absence of drummer Dave McNair. Session player Josh Freese recorded the CD with band members Linda Hopper (vocals), Ruthie Morris (guitars, vocals), and Shannon Mulvaney (bass).

Lyrically, songs like "I Don't Care", "Hold You Down", and "An Apology" hint quite emphatically at frayed emotions within the band.

"It was sort of, I don't know, not a mid-life crisis for the band, but it was in a way because we had been working so hard and all been so focused that there seemed like.... I personally felt incredibly drained," said Hopper, describing the state of the band before the Rubbing Doesn't Help CD was written. "There was a lot of hard thoughts that went into why we do this. And it all came out in the music. It was sort of...it was cathartic."

For the band, such emotions came to a head in the winter of 1995. That marked the end of what had been an uninterrupted string of touring and recording that began in 1992 with the release of Magnapop's self-titled EP, which was produced by REM's Michael Stipe.

A critically acclaimed full-length debut, Hot Boxing (produced by Bob Mould of Husker Du and Sugar), followed in 1994. But while by all outside appearances Magnapop's star appeared to be on the rise, internally doubts had surfaced. The key outcome from this period was the departure of McNair.

"The end of it all was that we could never elevate our shows beyond a certain point, meaning we could never get to the point where a show sort of, like, had a beginning, middle and an end and took care of itself," Hopper said. "It almost felt like the songs weren't cohesive and there was a lot of....like we still hadn't learned to play with each other yet, which sounds strange, I know. It's like, how could that be? How could you be a band? Well, we did it. But it was a matter of nobody really listening to anyone else on stage. That was pretty depressing. It was a matter of if we wanted to remain a band and make another record, we had to find a different drummer. And it was hard. But we had to do it. It was a choice.

"That was really tough, actually. That was like a group depression kind of thing because it felt like a divorce," Hopper said. "Our drummer was an original member and it was, gosh, it was, like, a really tough decision to do that, to move on from there. It was hard. It just wasn't working musically, and that sort of set the tone for '95, that whole thing."

Pared down to a trio, Hopper and Morris began writing songs while a search for a new drummer was launched. But the group's Athens/Atlanta home base failed to yield a suitable candidate, and feeling the urgency to get a new record done, Magnapop brought in session drummer Freese and settled into the home studio of producer Geza X (known for his work with the seminal punk bands The Germs and Dead Kennedys) to begin tracking the new songs.

Only after the CD was completed did Magnapop find a new drummer in Los Angeles native Mark Posgay.

"Our biggest concern when we were looking for a drummer and why we took our time was that it had to be somebody we could sit in a car with," Hopper said. "It had to be somebody that we wanted to actually turn on to all of our hard work. Because we weren't just four of us in an old van sneaking into one hotel room every night. We had done that for years and we had done a lot of the kind of [grunt] work. Not that that's not over, but we had done a lot of work and we wanted somebody who would appreciate where we had come from and how long it took us to get here, like going to Europe and things like that. And Mark, personality wise...we couldn't have gotten luckier."

In the context of the uncertainty and struggles that Magnapop went through over the past two years, the emotional flow of Rubbing Doesn't Help makes perfect sense.

Signs of self-doubt, turmoil and displacement echo through several songs on Rubbing Doesn't Help, be it in the edgy discomfort of "Come On Inside," the sadness of "My Best Friend" and "Dead Letter" (the latter written about a friend who overdosed on heroin) or the regret of "An Apology."

In the end, however, there is also a sense of rebirth that flows through Rubbing Doesn't Help. Upbeat songs like "Firebrand," with its affirmation of the healing power of love and friendship, and "This Family," which resonates with a renewed sense of unity and sense of purpose, lighten the mood considerably. Even "Open The Door," which at first seems like a sad reflection over the end of a time and a place someone once held dear (in this case, Hopper was referring to the passing of the close-knit 1980 Athens music scene that spawned Magnapop and many other bands), also has a more hopeful element as Hopper lyrically severs her attachment to the past, recognizes what's good about the present and prepares to embrace a new start and a new phase of life.

"I was glad we decided to go on," Hopper said, reflecting on the state of today's Magnapop, "because I believe in what we do. I love working with this band. It has a lot of me in it; I get to do the words.

"A lot of times Ruthie and I will look at each other and go, 'God, can you believe what we've been through just in the [past] year?'" Hopper said. "Actually, it makes me really happy and excited to think that we could take on a lot of different obstacles and still come out with something we feel is worthy.

"I feel completely successful on every level with this record," she added. "It doesn't matter, like, how many it sells or how popular it gets with, like, radio stations. To me it did everything I needed it to do. And if it does become popular in some way, more power to it."