Ugly Kid Joe

Ugly Kid Joe
General information
Genre (s)	Heavy metal , hard rock , with punk and funk influences
founding	1989, 2010
resolution	Mid 1997
Founding members
singing	Whitfield Crane
guitar	Klaus Eichstadt
Drums	Mark Davis
guitar	Roger Lahr
Electric bass	Cordell Crockett
Current occupation
singing	Whitfield Crane
guitar	Klaus Eichstadt
Drums	Shannon Larkin
guitar	Dave Fortman
Electric bass	Cordell Crockett
former members
Drums	Bobby Fernandez (now Bobby Hewitt)

Ugly Kid Joe is an American hard rock band that was formed in California in 1989 and split in 1997. In 2010 the musicians got back together and worked on a new album, which was completed in 2011.

Musically she combines hard rock, heavy metal and funk . Ugly Kid Joe became known to a wider audience in Germany mainly through the hit singles Everything About You and Cat's in the Cradle , a cover version of the song by Harry Chapin .

Band history

1989–1991: The beginning

Whitfield Crane and Germany-born Klaus Eichstadt both grew up in the same neighborhood in Palo Alto, California . In high school they became close friends. After finishing school, Crane moved to Santa Barbara with a friend and formed his first band, with which he also recorded a demo. Eichstadt, in turn, had recorded a demo and wanted Crane to contribute the vocals. Crane agreed on the condition that Eichstadt should also move to Santa Barbara and join his band Overdrive. In February 1990 he moved into Crane's house, which he shared with several other friends.

Overdrive then consisted of Crane ( vocals ) and Eichstadt ( guitar ) as well as Eric Phillips (guitar), Phil Hildengaertner ( electric bass ) and initially John Spaulding, but finally Mark Davis ( drums ). Dissatisfied with the musical direction, after Eichstadt joined the company, the main songwriter Phillips (whose contributions even made it onto the debut EP and CD in the form of the songs Too Bad , Funky Fresh Country Club and Don't Go ) . In the following, Crane and Eichstadt shared the role of songwriter. At that time, the guitarist Roger Lahr was taken on board. In April 1990, Cordell Crockett, the former roadie of the band Love / Hate, replaced the previous bassist Hildengaertner.

After Lahr's entry, the band renamed itself. At first it operated under the name SWAT, which stood for "Suburban White Alcoholic Trash", but eventually under the name Ugly Kid Joe. The name of the band is a reference to the glam metal band Pretty Boy Floyd, which was quite successful in the 80s. The name came up because a joint appearance with the band was planned, which was canceled by Pretty Boy Floyd. Actually, they only wanted to adopt the name for this one gig to emphasize the differences between the two bands, but they kept it.

The cast of Crane, Eichstadt, Davis, Lahr and Crockett recorded a demo produced by Eric Valentine. After ten appearances, the band was signed by Stardog Records through Bob Score. At that point they hadn't even played outside of Santa Barbara. At that time, management was already in the hands of Dennis Rider, who was to look after her until the end of her career. In October 1991 the EP As Ugly as They Wanna Be was recorded within a few days, which was released in Europe in May 1992. The title was chosen again with a twinkle in the eye. It should allude to the album As Nasty as They Wanna Be by the Group 2 Live Crew . The song Everything About You first attracted a larger audience to the band, as it was used in the hit film Wayne's World . A relatively simple music video - the entire song was filmed on the beach - followed shortly thereafter and was shown frequently on MTV . This culminated in the fact that As Ugly as They Wanna Be was the first EP to be awarded double platinum by the RIAA .

America's Least Wanted

In early 1992 guitarist Lahr left the band because of creative differences. Davis emphasized in an interview that Lahr was no longer working on the new songs. He was replaced in April 1992 by Sugartooth guitarist Dave Fortman. The band 's second album, America's Least Wanted (released on Mercury Records on September 8, 1992) features their most famous songs: Cats in the Cradle , Madman (with a newly recorded vocal track), Goddamn Devil and a version extended by a spoken intro by Everything About You . Various guest musicians play on the album, including Dean Pleasants from the group Infectious Grooves and Rob Halford from Judas Priest . Furthermore, guitarist Eichstadt made his debut as a singer with the title Mr. Recordman . Immediately after the last recordings, the band embarked on a US tour, initially as the opening act for Ozzy Osbourne and finally Def Leppard .

Davis left the band in 1994; then Bobby Fernandez was hired by the Electric Love Hogs as a temporary worker, with whom both the Rock-in-Rio Festival and the song NIB for the Black Sabbath tribute album Nativity in Black was recorded. Fernandez took his wife's family name, Hewitt, after his marriage. In the new drummer Shannon Larkin Crane was in a skiing holiday in Colorado attention after seeing a performance by his then band Souls at Zero seen and along with them Sin City by AC / DC had jammed.

Menace to Sobriety

Before starting to record their next studio album, Ugly Kid Joe decided to test some of the new songs on a one and a half week short tour. A budget of US $ 600,000 was available, so the ranch Palace del Rio north of Santa Barbara was rented for the recordings . There the band was able to record their material in a stage-like environment, the equipment was set up as if for a performance in the studio. The recordings took place shortly before Christmas 1994. Once again, the band used a reference to find the title, this time to the controversial film Menace II Society .

Candle Song marked another vocal debut for a band member, this time in the person of Dave Fortman. The album was released on June 13, 1995, but could not build on the great success of the last album. It reached number 178 on the American Billboard charts. The band sounded much heavier than on the previous recordings. For the first time, there were clear influences from the 1970s. The band then went on an extensive tour again, including in the opening act for Bon Jovi and Van Halen . After the tour, the record deal was not renewed by Mercury Records.

Motel California

After their US tour, Ugly Kid Joe recorded some new demos for their next album in the garage of their guitarist Eichstadt. They didn't look for a new record company for their new material, but instead founded their own called Evilution Records and signed a distribution agreement with Castle Records. The Motel California album was first single-handedly produced and financed with the help of Phil Nicolo during mixing in July 1996. The budget was therefore only a tenth of what was spent on the previous album. Recordings began in April 1996 and continued through June of the same year. Again there was a notable guest appearance in the studio thanks to the participation of Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead . The album was released on October 17, 1996, and the title is once again an obvious reference, this time to the Eagles' album Hotel California . To promote the new album, Crane and Fortman played a few unplugged shows, including in the UK.

The resolution

After the band returned from their European tour in December 1996, they wanted to start demo recordings for a new studio album. According to management, there have been inquiries from several record companies interested in signing a contract with the band. Eichstadt, however, had a bad feeling about the attitude and mood in the band. He then phoned Crane - who was on vacation in India at the time - and also spoke to the other band members. During these conversations it quickly became clear that none of the participants wanted to put their full commitment to the band. Instead, everyone wanted to take a different creative and musical direction. The result of these talks was the dissolution of Ugly Kid Joe. It was emphasized from all sides, however, that they had not parted in a dispute: For the AC / DC tribute album Thunderbolt there was a partial reunion of Ugly Kid Joe in 1997: Crane, Eichstadt and were involved in the pieces Ride On and Live Wire Larkin with Brad Divens and Mike Combs under the pseudonym The Sensational Whitskiteer Band .

comeback

In the December issue of the German magazine Metal Hammer Eichstadt said that a reunion was planned for the summer of 2010. Drummer Shannon Larkin reported in July 2011 that the band had recorded and completed a full album with the line-up of Crane (vocals), Eichstadt (guitar), Fortman (guitar), Crockett (bass) and Larkin. With this line-up, the group had already recorded the album Menace to Sobriety . The new album consists mainly of songs that guitarist Eichstadt wrote in 1998. In June 2012, the self-produced 6-track EP Stairway to Hell was finally released (once again an allusion to existing greats, here the Led Zeppelin title Stairway to Heaven or the AC / DC album Highway to Hell ). The band also plays various concerts around the world.

Discography

Albums and EPs

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1992	As Ugly as They Wanna Be	DE24 (21 weeks) DE	AT15 (16 weeks) AT	CH20 (13 weeks) CH	UK9 (13 weeks) UK	US4th × 2 Double platinum (34 weeks)US
	America's Least Wanted	DE10 (39 weeks) DE	AT4th gold (23 weeks)AT	CH16 gold (21 weeks)CH	UK11 (24 weeks) UK	US27 × 2 Double platinum (51 weeks)US
1995	Menace to Sobriety	DE29 (9 weeks) DE	AT24 (8 weeks) AT	CH22 (7 weeks) CH	UK25 (5 weeks) UK	US178 (1 week) US
2015	Uglier Than They Used ta Be	-	-	-	UK84 (1 week) UK	-

More albums

• 1996: Motel California
• 1998: The Very Best of Ugly Kid Joe - As Ugly as It Gets (compilation)
• 2002: The Collection (compilation)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1992	Everything About You America’s Least Wanted	DE11 (19 weeks) DE	-	CH14 (13 weeks) CH	UK3 (9 weeks) UK	US9 (20 weeks) US
	Neighbor America’s Least Wanted	-	-	-	UK28 (4 weeks) UK	-
	So Damn Cool America’s Least Wanted	-	-	-	UK44 (2 weeks) UK	-
1993	Cat's in the Cradle America’s Least Wanted	DE10 (29 weeks) DE	AT7 (13 weeks) AT	CH5 (22 weeks) CH	UK7 (9 weeks) UK	US6th gold (20 weeks)US
	Busy Bee America’s Least Wanted	-	-	-	UK39 (2 weeks) UK	-
1995	Milkman's Son Menace To Sobriety	-	-	-	UK39 (2 weeks) UK	-

More singles

• 1991: As Ugly as They Wanna Be
• 1991: Sweet Leaf (Promo)
• 1994: Goddamn Devil
• 1995: Cloudy Skies
• 1995: Tomorrow's World
• 1996: Little Red Man (Promo)
• 1996: sandwich
• 2012: Stairway to Hell
• 2012: Devil's Paradise (mp3 single)

Awards for music sales

Golden record  France 1993: for the album America's Least Wanted Platinum record  Australia 1993: for the single As Ugly as They Wanna Be 1994: for the single Cat's in the Cradle  Canada 1992: for the album As Ugly as They Wanna Be 1993: for the album America's Least Wanted

2 × platinum record  Australia 1994: for the album America's Least Wanted

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Australia (ARIA)	-	4 × platinum4th	280,000	ariacharts.com.au AU2 AU3
Canada (MC)	2 × gold2	-	100,000	musiccanada.com
France (SNEP)	gold1	-	100,000	infodisc.fr
Austria (IFPI)	gold1	-	25,000	ifpi.at
Switzerland (IFPI)	gold1	-	25,000	hitparade.ch
United States (RIAA)	gold1	4 × platinum4th	4,500,000	riaa.com
All in all	6 × gold6th	8 × platinum8th

swell

1. ↑ Sleaze Roxx: Ugly Kid Joe Complete Comeback Album (July 19, 2011) ( July 22, 2011 memento in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: Singles Albums UK US

Web links

Commons : Ugly Kid Joe  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official webpage of the band
• Ugly Kid Joe on Allmusic (English)
• Ugly Kid Joe at Discogs (English)
• Ugly Kid Joe at MusicBrainz (English)