Local H

All Music Guide:

Best-known for their unorthodox two-man lineup, hard rock act Local H has made a career out of straddling the fine line between indie and classic rock, cleverly framing their sardonic lyrics with a generous helping of power chords and feedback.

Scott Lucas (vocals/guitar) and Joe Daniels (drums) began playing together in high school in their native Zion, IL. Finding a suitable bassist proved an insurmountable challenge, so the industrious Lucas eventually devised a way to install bass pick-ups into his six-string. Armed with this intriguing novelty setup, the duo signed with Island Records and made their recording debut on 1995's Ham Fisted, a rather unoriginal disc which had some detractors tagging them as Nirvana wannabes. Its follow-up, 1996's much improved As Good as Dead, was another story, however, considerably expanding the band's sonic palette and firmly establishing their identity as Midwestern ironists supreme. Led by well-crafted power pop radio singles like "Bound for the Floor" and "Eddie Vedder," the album was eventually certified gold and helped earn the duo their alt rock cred, while simultaneously validating their contradictory ties to classic hard rock. Though less-focused and not quite as immediate, 1998's still solid Pack Up the Cats seemed set to maintain the band's rising momentum. But record company woes (Island's parent company Polygram was in the process of being absorbed by Universal Music) effectively clipped the band at the knees, the album became lost in the shuffle, and Local H went on a near three-year hiatus. In the interim, Daniels left the band under amicable circumstances and was replaced by former Triple Fast Action drummer (and Bun E. Carlos drum tech) Brian St. Clair.

Lucas and St. Clair returned in 2000 with a new album and a new label. Here Comes the Zoo (Palm Pictures) featured more of the Midwestern angst and cutting satire that had always defined Lucas' hard rock, but added the busier drumming style of St. Clair. Incessant touring followed; in 2003, the duo returned once again with the No Fun EP for the Chicago punk imprint Thick. The band's fifth album, Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles? arrived in spring 2004. The band released the 18-track live album, Local H Comes Alive in 2005. Three years later, the duo followed up with 12 Angry Months, a concept album based on a failed relationship.

Wikipedia:

Local H is an American rock duo, formed by Scott Lucas (lead vocals, guitar, bass) in Zion, Illinois in 1987. Local H's 1996 album, As Good as Dead, includes the top 10 hit "Bound for the Floor" Author, rock critic and Rolling Stone contributor Greg Kot and the Chicago Tribune named the band its 2008 Chicago "Band of the Year", calling them "as good a rock band as any to call Chicago home in the last decade." Online Metacritic calls Local H "rock’s greatest unknown two-man band" and says of their newest album, 12 Angry Months, "the ten year anniversary of Pack Up the Cats marks not some complacent CD reissue with bonus tracks, but rather a great new album that flips the bird to anyone who thought Local H was history along with their era." The band is set to release their next studio album, entitled "Hallelujah! I'm a Bum" in summer of 2012.

History

Local H was originally a three-piece band which consisted of Joe Daniels on drums, Scott Lucas on vocals and guitar, and Matthew Garcia on bass. In 1987, while attending high school in Zion, IL, Joe Daniels and Scott Lucas began playing together. Later, Matthew Garcia joined them, and they formed Local H in 1990. In 1993, Garcia left the band. Lucas and Daniels began looking for a replacement for Garcia, but eventually continued the band as a duo with Lucas singing, playing guitar, and bass guitar (by having a high school friend modify his guitar with a bass pick-up).

Local H recorded and released three studio albums: Ham Fisted (1995), As Good as Dead (1996), and Pack Up the Cats (1998). With 1996's 'As Good as Dead' the band found a major commercial success in "Bound for the Floor" which rose to #5 on the US Alternative Billboards and #10 on the US Hot Mainstream Rock Billboards. Tracks "Eddie Vedder" and "Fritz's Corner" both made Top 40 on the Alternative and Mainstream Rock Billboards.

In July 1999, after a complicated year with their label, original drummer Joe Daniels left the band. He was replaced by former member of Triple Fast Action, drum tech for Cheap Trick, and "one of the hardest working drummers in rock history", Brian St. Clair. Lucas and St. Clair released the band's fourth album Here Comes the Zoo in 2002 under the Palm Pictures record label. The No Fun EP followed in 2003 and their fifth album, Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles?, was released in April 2004 to favorable reviews.

In 2005, the band received a good deal of publicity after recording a cover of the Britney Spears single "Toxic." The studio-record can now be found as the last, and only studio recorded, track of Alive '05, a live album the band released in 2005 that constituted the sixth major release from the band.

On April 5, 2011, the ICON release of the band's Island recordings became their first "best-of" compilation. In an April 22, 2011 interview with The Delaware County Daily Times, Scott Lucas commented on the release saying, “It’s kinda weird but kinda cool because it doesn’t cover our entire career, so I was like, “Let’s call it The Island Years.”

Throughout 2011, the band has played new songs that are expected to be on an upcoming album. These songs include "Another February," "Paddy Considine," and "Cold Manor." In a June 28, 2011 guest appearance on the movie review podcast/website "CinemaJaw," Lucas claimed that the next album would be out before the upcoming 2012 elections—mainly because so much of the album's content deals with it directly—expecting it to be released by February 2012. In the same interview, Lucas also suggested that a working title for the album was "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," named for a movie from the Depression Era.

On January 1, 2012, during the band's New Year's show at The Bottom Lounge in Chicago, Scott announced that he and Brian would begin recording for the next album in Chicago within 2 weeks. They have since posted several videos of the songs being mixed in the studio. Additional track titles have been released in these videos, such as "Sad History", "Say the Word", "Feed the Fever" and "They Saved Reagan's Brain".

Live shows

Local H is known for their frequent and energetic live shows. The members of the band can usually be found at their own merchandise table after shows, signing autographs and selling band t-shirts.

Local H also has a reputation for creative ideas with regards to its live shows. In addition to playing a show in Chicago every New Year's Eve, the band has also participated in several unconventional concerts over the years, such as allowing one fan to select an album name from a hat, and then playing that album in its entirety. In 2005, Local H performed an "all request tour" in which a ballot containing a breakdown of most of the bands' songs organized into various categories, resembling a traditional sushi menu, was handed out to the audience upon admittance to the venue. Audiences were allowed to pick seven songs from the "menu" and the setlist for each show was derived from these ballots.

In 2003, the band auctioned off a live show to the winner of an eBay auction. The band subsequently performed this concert at Duke O'Briens, a pub in Crystal Lake, IL.

In the summer of 2007, Local H played an early morning show at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago before a White Sox game. Tickets to this show were only available by spotting Scott Lucas in public and speaking the phrase "Attention all planets of the Solar Federation, we have assumed control" directly to him. Later that same year, Local H announced a contest in which fans could make videos of themselves covering Local H songs. The winner would then get to be the opening act for Local H's New Year's Eve show later that year. A band from New York called Kung-Fu Grip won the contest with their cover of a song from Local H's No Fun E.P.

During the spring months of 2010, Local H embarked on their "6 Angry Records" Tour. Each show began with Scott holding a hat filled with slips of paper containing the band's album names. After interviewing members of the audience about which album they'd like to hear, one audience member would choose an album from the hat. The band would then play that album on the spot in its entirety, following by an encore of other Local H favorites and covers.

In May 2012 the band launched a tour of small clubs and bars in preparation for release of a new album