Therapy? played at The Leadmill on the first of December 2001.
I went with friends Snell who has since passed away from Cystic Fibrosis.
A great friend of mine and other friends including Simon Jenkins.
A tough year for the band and the world as it would never be the same after 9/11 the terror attack on New York which unfolded live on our television screens.
The band head to Seattle in the American North-West to start work on their next album with legendary producer Jack Endino. The band want a more live rock and roll feel to their new work and Jack helps them achieve that over the course of the eight weeks they are there. Augmenting their sound with the help of Barrett Martin (Queens Of The Stone Age, R.E.M. and The Screaming Trees) on percussion and various friends on vocals and guitars (Clutch, Black Halos and Mr. Endino himself) the band have a blast and let themselves go.
Andy Cairns from their official site https://therapyquestionmark.co.uk/
They not only record the album itself but also a cover of Turbonegro’s Denim Demon for the Alpha Motherfuckers album on Bitzcore Records and several other tunes, including covers of the Black Halos’ Blood Sucking Freaks, legendary Irish punk band Rudi’s Big Time and also an insane original piece called Valentines Day 2001 which ends up sounding like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits jamming in a jazz club at the end of the world.
It’s not all work and no play though. While there, the band take in great shows by Mudhoney, Supersuckers, The Melvins, Tad Doyle’s new band Hog Molly, The Catheters, Clutch and Nebula.
Inspired and ready for action the band return home in March. Due to various record company fuck ups however, Shameless is not released until later in the year meaning that the excitement and momentum the band had built up is somewhat lost. A short American tour of the east coast is a minor success but with no new record to promote it seems very strange at times.
The single Gimme Back My Brain receives single of the week in Kerrang! and The Guardian but is lost among record company ‘faux pas’. Trying to make up for lost time the band embark on a grueling autumn/winter tour of Europe where the cold weather and busy schedule sees all the band falling ill and feeling exhausted.
They are also getting a familiar nagging feeling that, once again, all is not well with either their drummer or the record company. What started off as a year with so much promise, ends in fatigue and uncertainty. The only thing making the whole exercise seem worthwhile at this point is the support of their fans who have been great throughout. The final two gigs of the year in Belfast and Dublin confirm this and bring the band home with some comfort. Two days before Christmas Graham Hopkins leaves the band.
Therapy?’s eighth album, often described as pure rock ’n’ roll, featuring Gimme Back My Brain and I Am The Money. Recorded in Seattle and produced by Jack Endino. Released by ARK 21 Records in 2001 on CD. Released in September.
“Everything about this album bar the finished result was perfect for me. We recorded it out in Seattle, which is my favourite place in America, at the incredible Robert Lang Studios where Nirvana and the Foo Fighters recorded. We worked with the legendary producer Jack Endino [Mudhoney/Soundgarden] who couldn’t have been nicer; he was a really good cheerleader in regards to getting the album done. The problem was the material. At this point in time, because Therapy? had been around for over a decade, we had a clear idea of what we wanted to do and we didn’t want to follow the nu-metal trend, which was at its height at this point. As a reaction to that movement, I started listening to lots of old punk and punk ‘n’ roll records.
Andy cairns from https://www.loudersound.com/features/therapy-albums-ranked-worst-best-troublegum-nurse-andy-cairns
I felt like some of the stuff we’d done on Nurse, Troublegum and Infernal Love was almost like a precursor to nu-metal, so we’d done that already and there was no need to jump onboard that band wagon. Michael [McKeegan, bass] and I went in the direction of wanting to do a raw punk record, but the other two guys in the band – Graham [Hopkins, drums] and Martin [McCarrick, guitar & cello] – were really into the whole nu-metal thing and I suppose they didn’t really see what Michael and I were trying to do. They thought we were being old-fashioned but I said, ‘No, I’m trying to make an absurd rock ‘n’ roll record.’
The tracks were written by the time we got over to Seattle, but it was obvious from the start that Graham in particular wasn’t into it – we actually found out later on that he’d already planned to leave the band and the motions were already in place. So he just wanted to go and that made for a not very nice atmosphere. Martin wanted the material to be more nu-metal as well, and he was constantly playing White Pony by the Deftones. To overcompensate for that, rather disturbingly, they wanted to play as many instruments as possible and originally what started as a very back to basics rock ‘n’ roll record ended up being this kind of half-finished album that didn’t really sound like Therapy?.
It just sounded a bit weird, like a lost rhythm & blues band, and it definitely didn’t come out the way we wanted it to, which is a shame because we had a really good time doing it. I remember thinking at the time, ‘What happened to our band?’ But we had a great holiday in Seattle and we hung out with some very cool people – the guys in Pearl Jam and Soundgarden lent us some of their gear, so it wasn’t all bad.”
Reviews weren’t great https://drownedinsound.com/releases/2724/reviews/2290-
Therapy? were a brilliant band once. But their fixation with the camp, kitsch aspects of heavy metal seems to have overtaken them. Any band who lists their main influences as Judas Priest, Exodus (specifically “Bonded by Blood” era), and Saxon… have either got their tongue in their cheeks, or mean it. Therapy? On the other hand, used to mean something more than all those bands combined. Now all they mean is Thin Lizzy-esque double guitar harmonies (favourite of Iron Maiden, and worryingly, Papa Roach), songs that start with the Bon Jovi-esque choruses of “Woah Woah”), lyrics so infantile and puerile they make the Ramones look like Steven Hawking, and all the worst metal cliches under the Sun – only they mean it, maaaan. Gentleman, start your axes indeed.
by Graham Reed October 9th, 2001
Setlist
1. Gimme back my brain
2. Hellbelly
3. Lonely, cryin’, only
4. This one’s for you
5. Die laughing
6. Teethgrinder
7. Tango Romeo
8. He’s not that kind of girl
9. Stalk and slash
10. Opal mantra
11. Stories
12. Isolation
13. Joey
14. Knives
15. Screamager
16. Alrite
17. I am the money
18. Church of noise
19. Nowhere
Infernal Love was the last album I bought of theirs and apart from seeing them live I had moved on.
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