Semisonic

How does that behavior exemplify business savvy, you ask? Well, since LB’s aggressive, funky, hip-hop, hard rock hasn’t exactly been embraced by commercial media, Durst has to make sure every live show is an experience not to be forgotten. By the looks of the band’s box office numbers and sales of its Flip/Interscope debut, Three Dollar Bill, Yall$, it seems the tactic is working.

Wilson said there was a song called “Delicious” on Semisonic’s debut album, Great Divide, that had potential for becoming a “flash in the pan, where are they now” hit. He said the combination of wisdom and inefficiency at the label prevented the single from being released.

“There was a lot of inefficiency [at MCA] because a lot of people were getting fired and hired during the whole process of the record,” Wilson said. “So that gave us a little bit of this ‘not a flash in the pan’ vibe because there just wasn’t enough efficiency to cram us down everyone’s throats.

“I wished that [the single] would have come out but on the other hand, then, I do believe we would not have had a chance to have people hear this new record with the level of respect and excitement…. There’s no inflated expectations for us. I think that helps us a little bit.”

Without the hype, Semisonic has been able to successfully traverse the country, consistently building up its fan base. In fact, it was the band’s performances that inspired it to seek a recording contract in the first place.

Before forming Semisonic, Wilson and bandmate John Munson had been in a band called Trip Shakespeare. When that band “ground to a halt,” they hooked up with Jacob Slichter and started learning cover songs. “John and Jake and I learned a bunch of covers and started playing gigs around Minneapolis, just really to have fun.”

The band didn’t roam too far from home but the success of the Minneapolis gigs inspired the guys to become a “real” band. They wrote some new songs and then, to meet the demand of fans, made a couple of basement recordings. The new band received a lot of interest once the tapes got out and soon, the trio was touring the Midwest.

Shortly thereafter, they landed a recording contract with MCA. Still, Wilson didn’t expect to have Semisonic become a major touring act. “We thought we were going to be sort of like a Steely Dan, no performance, only recording kind of thing,” he said. “But for some reason, the two things kind of converged. I think it was because of the strength of the live performance that we got the record deal actually. We had some really good songs too, but I think our live performance was really convincing.

“In between Semisonic’s two releases, the band got to spend quite a bit of time exercising that convincing performance style. A number of the shows it did during the past two years were radio-sponsored concerts. The band also plans to do some radio shows this year, a concept Wilson looks at with a smile on his face.

He doesn’t see radio fests as “playola” like many do. And he also doesn’t think participating in those types of shows necessarily burns out the band’s play in the market. He thinks the multi-act concerts have actually been beneficial to the band’s development on the road.

Wilson said when Semisonic has gone into a market and done a club show, then a radio fest and then returned for another club gig, the second club show always draws far more fans. “The second club show and first club show are like night and day,” he said. “A lot of people are really skeptical about [radio fests]. They bum people out. People get very upset about the inconvenience of doing them and … having it not be your crowd.”

It is important that bands don’t sweat the people that are never going to be interested and then totally just go for it with the rest of them, Wilson said.

“If there’s 70,000 people and 10,000 of them are enjoying you, that’s a lot of people. You know what I mean? It’s just that they’re each six seats apart from each other,” he joked.

Lending Semisonic a hand at developing its career is manager Jim Grant and the booking team at Monterey Peninsula Artists. Wilson said he likes to be in on all the business discussions but the band really trusts the judgement of Grant and responsible agent Frank Riley. “They understand where we’re at and they know how to put us into situations that are going to make sense.”