Letters to Cleo: Addicted to Pop
by Keith Bergman
from: Glass Eye (vol 10, issue 11, Feb ’96)

If you’ve thought about the new Letters to Cleo album, Wholesale Meats and Fish, chances are you’ve dismissed it out of hand as the inevitable sophomore jinx phase of a one-hit wonder. That hit, of course, was "Here & Now," an addictive little ditty with singer Kay Hanley’s rapid- fire chorus that catapulted the band into a Melrose Place fueled shot at the brass ring. But this Boston quintet doesn’t plan to let you off the well-written hook quit that easily... Wholesale Meats and Fish is a fine pop gem in its own right, and while it got buried in the fall avalanche of new releases (you try getting your voice heard above that brat Billy Corgan!), the band and their label are mercifully giving you another chance in 1996 with nonstop touring and a new single or three. Guitarist Greg McKenna, his voice thick with that Kennedyesque Boston accent, rang up the Glass Eye recently to chat, and remind those of us in need of a sugar fix that they’re coming to the Main Event on Sunday, February 4 with Deep Blue Something in support.

The Eye: First question: when people interview you, do they say "I wanna talk to the chick!"?

Greg: Yeah, most of the time they do wanna talk to the lead singer. That’s probably true for most bands, but it’s accentuated more with a female vocalist.

The Eye: Does it ever seem to you like Letters to Cleo is perceived as Kay and four faceless guys?

Greg: They regard it as a band, but Kay’s very noticeable. Most people don’t know our names but they’ll know Kay. Of course, that’s only one letter!

The Eye: Does that frustrate you?

Greg: No, because we know what we contribute. Unfortunately, because Kay is so noticeable up front, she has a lot of pressure on her from fans and press. In a way, it’s good for [the rest of] us because we have more time to think about writing music. I wouldn’t take what Kay gets; she’s inundated a lot of times. When we can go relax, go do something else, she’s stuck doing interviews and talking to people.

The Eye: Wholesale Meats and Fish hasn’t exactly set the world on fire sales-wise, so far...

Greg: It caught us by surprise; we thought maybe it was just us, but it turns out that the whole fourth quarter, when our record came out, the whole industry was down because there were so many choices. Green Day - eight million albums [of Dookie], then they turn around and sell half a million [of Insomniac]. Candlebox, they sell three million, now their new one’s barely over a quarter million. The whole industry seems to be on a slow pace right now.

The Eye: With this downturn happening so soon after the success of "Here & Now," has anyone come along and called you one-hit wonders?

Greg: Not that I know of - yet. It could quite possibly be, but I think people who’ve listened to the albums realize that we’re not one song with a bunch of filler. We have a lot of good songs to offer people, and it just happens that one gets noticed. Some people who don’t know the band too well might think of us as one-hit wonders, but people who’ve listened to the records know that we’re a good band that was just fortunate enough to have a hit.

The Eye: You founded the band, I’ve heard - how did you all get together?

Greg: I was forming another band and we needed a background vocalist, so a friend of mine called Kay and asked her to come down. Within six months she surpassed the old singer, so that’s how she got involved. Everyone else split at one point, about five years ago, so we changed the name to Letters to Cleo and Michael, the other guitarist, joined. Over the next two or three years Stacy, our drummer, and Scott [the bassist] joined - again, just friends of friends. It took us a while to find the right personalities, but we’re very happy now with what we have.

The Eye: So you’re a veteran of the Boston scene, then!

Greg: Kay and I have been around in the Boston music scene for a good ten years, and have been around as Letters to Cleo for five. We’ve played a lot, ever since Letters to Cleo we’ve been playing out on trips from Maine to Virginia.

The Eye: How would you say the scene in Boston has changed since your beginnings? I know quite a few Boston bands have been signed - Buffalo Tom, Juliana Hatfield, Morphine...

Greg: The Boston scene hasn’t changed much, it’s just that so many parts of it are getting recognized. What has changed are the numbers of bands getting record deals. I thing that has a lot to do with that attitude of the music industry, that what used to be "alternative" rock is now mainstream. They’re really clueless, and they’re trying to sign all the bands they can to see what works. As a result, most of the good bands in Boston are now signed and touring nationally. It’s left sort of a vacuum in Boston as far as good headlining local bands. There are some new up-and-coming groups, thought; I’ve already been out to see a couple. I’ve seen quite a few good new bands.

The Eye: With so many bands achieving success, are you seeing the new crop of locals imitating you, or other successful groups?

Greg: Well... there are bands that do sound a lot like REM or U2, and that’s always gonna happen. Those bands are generally not gonna make it; the ones that make it tend to have their own identity. The really funny thing is watching cover bands playing our songs! That’s wild.

The Eye: Is it a neat thing, like an honor, or just weird? Greg: It’s weird - it’s too funny. You take it with a grain of salt. I suppose some people would watch a cover band playing their stuff, saying "you guys suck! You were playing all these chords wrong!"

The Eye: In the bio, Kay says Letters to Cleo is just, and I quote, a "happy loser pop band." Is that something you’re fine with?

Greg: We’re all influenced by many different things, [but] what we all have in common is that we’re addicted to pop. We tend to write that way. It comes down to these pop hooks, the chords. We’re a pop band.

The Eye: If the record doesn’t have a resurgence and come back up the charts, are you worried about what the label will do?

Greg: They’ve been very supportive so far. We took these two months off to write and they were understanding of that. We’re going back out for that week in February, then we’ll basically be touring nonstop from March till the end of the year. We’re gonna release another single and really push that. They know what the industry’s like, and they still have a lot of faith in us. They still think the album can get going again, once we have a new single. I’ve heard horror stories of bands being stuck on labels that told them what to do, that didn’t do anything, but we’ve been really fortunate.