Crushing it
Detroit ’90s band gets its due with new compilation
Majesty Crush’s re-emergence on the music radar is not something many would have predicted when the Detroit band broke up in 1995 after a five-year run.
Its story then, like so many others, was one of great promise cut short by cold truths of the music industry. The quartet wasn’t necessarily guaranteed stature as one of rock’s next big things, but it had an undeniable presence at home and growing awareness beyond before things came crashing down.
And now the band is back — in a way.
The just-released “Butterflies Don’t Go Away” compiles Majestic Crush’s lone album, 1993’s “Love 15,” as well as its EPs “Fan” and “Sans Muscles” into a handsomely packaged two-disc vinyl collection. A “No. 1 Fan” EP, led by the group’s 1992 hit, came out in February, and a young fan at Michigan State University has created two YouTube channels dedicated to Majesty Crush, particularly archival performance footage.
“It’s the weird miracles that happen,” says bassist Hobey Echlin, who now resides in Long Beach, Calif. “We’re kind of, like amazed. We never had this sense of closure or this ability to really see it in its totality.”
In fact, Echlin adds, because of the tragic death of singer David Stroughter in 2017 during a confrontation with Los Angeles police officers, “we all had a bittersweet memory because we got the rug pulled out from under us.
“Now, hey, there’s this record that never really had a chance its first time out, and it’s got another chance. I guess good things do come to those who wait.”
There are actually two stories at work here — Majesty Crush’s initial history and the kismetic manner in which it’s being recognized now.
Almost heaven
Majesty Crush was formed by Echlin, along with Stroughter, guitarist Mike Segal and drummer Odell Nails,
who all hailed from Southfield. With both white and Black members, it did not look like any other rock band in the metro area. And the gauzy, surging and even anthemic urgency of its music didn’t sound like any other, either.
The roots, according to Echlin, were in the post-punk, new wave and alternative music the band members gravitated towards, primarily British bands such as Joy Division, the Jesus and Mary Chain, A.R. Kane and others. Segal, a graphic design student who worked at Play It Again Records, was “our arbiter of taste. He would turn us on to records. That was our guiding light,” according to Echlin, who was in the preceding band Spawn Ranch with Nails and was also a writer for the Detroit Metro Times.
Majesty Crush opened for touring acts such as Mazzy Star, Royal Trux, Julian Cope and The Verve, and it struck up close relationships with other Detroit bands such as Charm Farm and Goober and the Peas.
“We were almost an anomaly, these Brit Pop-sounding guys, but they
were Black,” Echlin explains. Majesty Crush’s music has long been classified as shoegaze or dream pop, but that was too easy a categorization for a blend that incorporated a wealth of Detroit influences from Motown to the MC5 and beyond.
“We were like, ‘Wow, you can have erotic, emotional lyrics but also noise, and you can make music that’s extremely charismatic,’” Echlin recalls. “I think it’s very Detroit to be drawn to these extremes. I don’t think we were great musicians, and we never considered ourselves songwriters. But we were trying to do something; even if it was minimal it had a certain mood and edge to it, and a certain originality. What we lacked in technical proficiency we made up for in chemistry.
“But it did have melody. It did, in its own naive way, cut through a little bit. We just kinda knew what sounded good based on our — we thought — pretty good taste.”
89X in Windsor began playing “No. 1 Fan,” and Majesty Crush landed a