PIECE OF CAKE

The major-label debut: messy and rushed, but with ramshackle charm ARM: So many of the bands that we liked, historically when they went to a major label they’d all of a sudden do this real glossy record, which we didn’t want to do. I remember when we met with Lenny Waronker at Reprise – we asked him how come he’d glossed up The Replacements and Hüsker Dü when they signed to Warners. He said, “We didn’t do anything, we just gave them the money and they decided to record how they wanted to record.” So with that in mind, we were like, “Well, we’ll just go back to the same basement studio with Conrad Uno where we did the last record.” PETERS: We should have taken a little more time on this, though, and not been in such a hurry to get in and record. We went in underprepared to record, and maybe not with the strongest material. There are some great songs on there – like “Suck You Dry” – but as a whole the record seems to suffer a bit. LUKIN: It’s a real thin-sounding record, but it lends itself to a few of the songs. All the ones we’d done before are pretty much the same formula! I don’t know if we knew how to do things any different. ARM: This was pretty much the depths of [my addiction]. I would show up to sessions late because I had to meet a guy… Yeah, it was terrible. My focus was there rather than on the music. There are some good songs on the record despite that, but overall Piece Of Cake suffers from a consistency problem. TURNER: David Katznelson, our A&R guy, was and is awesome, so we just kept doing what we did. We got a few more opportunities, some of which we fucked up...

“Even in my hazy drug era, I put money down on a house instead of just putting it into my arm” MARK ARM