An Old Flame Rekindled from p19 While other bands of the 2000s like The Strokes and The White Stripes were re- branding garage rock, Flickerstick was clearly influenced by British bands of the ages. Their space rock/pop sound relied heavily on special guitar effects, simple drum beats and the soaring vocals of Lea, putting them in a unique classification as a neo-psychedelic rock band. The band signed with manager Paul Bassman and performed a label showcase at New York’s CBGB club before recording and releasing their first offering, Welcoming Home the Astronauts in 2000. The album, produced by Todd and Toby Pipes of Deep Blue Something, quickly became a local clas- sic — the production value trumped that of the majority of local releases — and it gath- ered substantial industry attention. Shortly after the release, Flickerstick found a national spotlight on a VH1 reality TV show called Bands on the Run. The show had a loose “battle of the bands” premise. Four bands fought for a prize that included the opportunity to play in front of industry executives, a chance to film a music video to be played on the network and $100,000. It ran for one season and showed each band’s hustle as they independently produced, pro- moted and performed in various cities. Flickerstick ultimately won. Beyond the band’s music, the series also showcased the young group’s vintage fash- ion, excessive partying and laddish ways which, of course, made for great reality tele- vision. Young groups all around North Texas were seen on stages sporting Lea’s signature white belt, Kreig’s Western shirts and Weir’s maroon leather jackets. After claiming the grand prize, the band fielded offers from major labels in a bidding war in which Epic/Sony ultimately came out the victor. “A great misconception about the band was that we were signed to Sony because we won the show,’ Lea says. “It was actually dif- ficult to get labels to pay attention to us be- cause of the show.” The cameras had, at times, caught the band mid-fight, and even more times mid-party. They might not have seemed the best bet but won the show on account of their musical abil- ities. On the other hand, the popularity of the show helped build them a national following, making it easier for them to break out. “A lot of labels were turned off by the fact we were in a reality show,” Kreig says. “Re- member at that same exact time shows like Making the Band were on TV and it gave the impression we were formed for the show. It was a credibility thing. In a few album re- views in magazines they would barely talk about our music and just make fun of us for being on TV. Some of the labels just kind of blew us off as a novelty act. It wasn’t until we started selling out big venues and getting ra- dio play in several markets that labels started to take notice.” O 20 20 THE RIDE n Sept. 10, 2001, a few months after their win was televised, Flickerstick found themselves on tour in New York City, riding a new wave of success. They invited Dallas legends Doosu along on Mike Brooks the ride as opening support. Flickerstick had been invited to several high-profile parties, but Lea was sick with strep throat at the ho- tel while his band members ran into label mates Incubus while out on the town. Things got a little out of hand at one party. The story goes that one of Flickerstick’s members was at odds with one of the fel- lows in Incubus and took a swing. After the dust-up, the band hastily made their way back to the hotel and to sober Lea’s surprise, a highly inebriated Kreig was hand-deliv- ered to his room like the very best of New York room service. The next day, Flickerstick was scheduled to play a sold-out show at Irving Plaza for a group of media bigwigs who oversaw book- ings for all the late-night TV shows includ- ing Saturday Night Live. Maroon 5 was also added to the bill at the last minute as an opener. On Sept. 11, Lea woke up to Kreig passed out in the bathroom. While getting out of bed, sore from a steroid shot adminis- tered to him the night before, Lea heard a loud screeching from above. “I’m sitting on the bed, and I can hear what sounds like a train and it gets so loud, and then everything shakes,” Lea remem- bers. “I turn on the news and then the phone rings, and it’s our manager Paul Bassman a few floors below in the hotel telling us what he thinks has happened. He thought maybe a pilot missed La Guar- dia and hit one of the towers. I got up, grabbed the two sticks to open the cur- tains and I heard the noise again. I look up and can see a plane, and it totally slams into the second building, and I hear Paul scream and I drop the phone. I immedi- ately woke Cory up, and he sobered up as soon as he saw the TV.” Two Flickerstick reunion shows at House of Bluse sold out quickly. The band was staying just a few blocks from where the Twin Towers were located and the members of Doosu were a mere three blocks away from the impact. They all still re- call the panic, chaos and destruction that un- folded around them as they sat at the hotel bar waiting for confirmation that everyone was OK and that their showcase was canceled. Cell phone service was next to impossible, but the group finally got a call from Toby Pipes, guitar- ist of Deep Blue Something, offering his help to contact their families back in Texas. “Everybody wrote down two numbers and Toby called home to let our friends and families know that we were OK,” Lea says. “It was impossible to get out of New York, so we stayed put and ultimately decided we would continue the tour. Doosu stayed on with us and slept in our bus that night be- cause they were evacuated and had to leave everything they owned at the hotel.” Todd Harwell, Doosu’s drummer and current Flickerstick member, can still viv- idly recall the events of those days. “I parked the Doosu van around Irving Plaza the night before and walked all the way down to the Cosmopolitan in Manhat- tan where we were staying,” he says. “I got back to the room around 4:45 a.m. and fell asleep. When the first plane hit, it sounded like a really bad car accident. I saw smoke and went downstairs to Starbucks to see what was happening. When the second plane hit, I felt a serious wall of heat three blocks away from the Trade Center and I just ran. I thankfully ran into tour manager Sean Bailey, and we met up with everyone else six or so hours later. It was bizarre.” Their next show was at Asbury Park, New Jersey. Flickerstick and Doosu deliv- ered emotional sets, riddled with break- downs from the bands and audience alike. They finished the rest of the tour and headed home, waiting for a call from their record label. A few weeks later, Flickerstick got the long-awaited call. The attacks on 9/11 caused a seismic shift in the music industry, and Epic/Sony had decided to delay the re- lease of their next scheduled single, “Coke,” and scrapped the budget for the accompany- ing music video. “When we started hearing about bands getting dropped, one half of me thought things were going to be OK, the other part of me knew it had just died,” Lea says of that time in the music industry. “I got a call from our manager that the label had decided to keep us on the roster, but that our A&R guy had been laid off. It sent us all into a spiral of epic proportions.” Within a couple of years, the band would find themselves without the support of a major label. They left Epic/Sony and were eventually able to get back the rights to their first record. They also shuffled through lineup changes as Weir was let go and Kreig left the group after a rocky recording session for the next album. Harwell and Tim Locke took their places in the band. Flickerstick re- leased their second studio album, Tarantula, in 2004 on Idol Records and spent years on grueling tours in support of the album. After several more live releases, each of them em- barked on separate journeys and careers. The band called it quits in January 2009. THE REUNION Putnam and fan Al Zito decided to start a Facebook group called “The Flickerstick So- cial Media Experiment” (now Flickerstick Official), to help build a community around the music and with the hope that, with any luck, it might wrangle the group back to the stage. “I was in a hotel room in a Germany, fly- Y ing around everywhere for work, drinking bourbon and listening to Flickerstick,” Put- nam says. “Years after they split up, I was still passionate about their music. No other band brought that kind of energy to their live shows. I started the page to try and en- courage the band to get back together and thought, ‘This is going to be fun.’” Eventually, several Flickerstick band members joined the group and interacted with fans for the better part of a decade. People started joining by the hundreds to share pictures, stories and pleas for Flicker- stick to play once more. In 2021, with Flick- erstick nostalgia reaching a 20-year-long high, a new label called DFW Legacy Series, run by Travis Hill and G.I. Sanders, part- nered with the group to re-release Flicker- stick’s debut album on vinyl. After selling through the pressing of Welcoming Home the Astronauts in a matter of just a few days, a reunion began to seem more likely. With the help of one musician friend, fan and now full-time Flickerstick member Beau Wagner, conversations among the old members ears later, as Generation Xers dis- covered the joys of Facebook in the early 2010s, local politician Chris MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 JULY 14–20, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
