Stabbing Westward

1992 – Cargo Records features Stabbing Westward’s “Violent Mood Swings” on its compilation titled, Cyberflesh Conspiracy. Band records demo featuring “Nothing,” “Lies” and “Throw”– attracts interest from Columbia Records. David Kahane signs the band to Columbia Records.

1993 – SW Enters Eden Studio in Chiswick, England to record first album with Jon Fryer. Six weeks later, Ungod is finished.

In September, Stabbing Westward undergoes trial by fire, playing for 4,300 people at CMJ Music Marathon opening for Rage Against the Machine. The first show of the Ungod tour is a smash success.

1994 – February, sees the release of Ungod.. The band tours with Therapy?, Paw, and Machines of Loving Grace before embarking on a three week shed tour with the likes of Depeche Mode and Primal Scream. Stabbing Westward is invited to Martin Gore’s wedding reception and parties all night on tour bus before driving to Reading Festival. Stabbing performs at festival in front of 140,000 people. A very British crowd relishes every fiery note.

1995 – Band rents a rehearsal space in Libertyville, IL where it writes and demos all of Whithe, Blister Burn & Peel. Starts recording the album in May in a haunted barn in Woodstock, NY.

1996 – Whither, Blister Burn & Peel is released on January 23. Soon after, the band tours with The Sex Pistols and Kiss. At the first show with Kiss, Stabbing’s dressing room is directly opposite Kiss’. Over the course of the evening, Stabbing Westward hears rummaging in its refrigerator and discovers Tom Arnold and Ace Frehley sneaking beers. Kiss isn’t happy, and the next day Stabbing finds itself in the smallest dressing room imaginable, far away from Kiss.

MTV is fond of first single “What Do I Have To Do?” but still needs convincing. The network acquiesces and adds band to Buzz Bin after discovering that Stabbing Westward is the only band with the courage to perform a full set in three degree below zero temperature at MTV-attended Snoasis Festival.

1997 – Band moves from Chicago to L.A. and works on Darkest Days for the first half of the year. It enters the studio in June with Dave Jerden. Stays in the studio until September fine-tuning the record-it’s the band’s most abrasive and personal recording to date.

1998 – Darkest Days is released on April 7. Another tour with Depeche Mode follows, after which Stabbing hits the road with Placebo. During a New York Show at Irving Plaza, Claudia Schiffer accidentally walks in on a completely nude Stabbing Westward changing in their dressing room. Claudia becomes big fan.

1999 – Stabbing performs the last show on the Darkest Days tour on May 1 in Tampa, Florida. In June the group begins writing new material for its fourth album. Right as the band is about to enter the studio with Bob Rock, Columbia Records and band come to a creative impasse. After a six year relationship, Sony Music and Stabbing Westward part ways.

2000 – Undaunted, Stabbing shops new material around to various labels and is offered a deal by independent stalwart, Koch Entertainment. The group likes the idea of being a big fish in a smaller pond. Weary of the industrial metal niche it had been pigeonholed in, the group decides to take a poppier approach on its new record. Band hires Suede producer, Ed Buller. Feeling that the changes were tantamount to a rebirth, the band decides to call the new record, simply, Stabbing Westward.

2001 – Buller refines the band’s sound and proves it doesn’t need huge walls of sound to have powerful songs. Stabbing Westward enlists Derrek Hawkins to play guitar on record. Songs like “So Far Away,” “Breathe You In” and “Television,” which feature infectious hooks, head-bobbing beats and less angry, but equally moody vocals, exemplify the band’s revised sound. Tom Lord-Alge (The Wallflowers, Hole, Live) mixes the record.