1992: University of Washington classmates Jeff J. Lin and Aaron Huffman decide it might be fun to start a band. Together they ride the bus to a Seattle music store and buy a guitar, a bass and two practice amps, and begin learning to play their instruments. Soon, they start playing house parties and bars under the name Harvey Danger, a name taken from a piece of graffiti drawn on the wall of the UW student newspaper office.
1993: Evan Sult invites his UW classmate Sean Nelson to come play music with Lin and Huffman, whom he barely knows, but who have asked him if he might want to try being their new drummer. Despite the fact that Sult has never before played the drums, he leaps at the opportunity, as does Nelson, who plays no musical instruments at all but has always vaguely wanted to be in a band. Together, the two sets of friends stumble through a 20-minute version of the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On," with Sult on his knees, playing a broken snare drum on the floor and a hi-hat cymbal turned upside down on an old coffee can while Nelson sings through a Radio Shack mic plugged into a Crate guitar amp. (Huffman and Lin's gear seems impossibly pro by comparison.) All parties decide that the session is awesome, and more follow.
1994: After months of preparation, Harvey Danger's first show with the full line-up takes place on April 21, roughly two weeks after Kurt Cobain's suicide, at a now-defunct punk rock firetrap called the Lake Union Pub. Because they are under 21, Sult and Nelson must wait outside before and after the band's set, which consists of five originals and "What Goes On." That summer, Huffman, Lin, and Sult move into Nelson's student house when all his roommates vacate in the space of a fortnight, and HD begins practicing in the basement, much to the neighbors' chagrin. More shows at the Lake Union Pub, and at its sister venues, The Ditto Tavern and The New World (famously, the only places in Seattle that would book literally any band) follow throughout the year. The band's first profile appears in The Seattle Times, written by a friend of the band. The article is accompanied by a song sample readers can access by telephone. The sound quality is described by Nelson's parents as "like calling a vacuum cleaner." The band resolves to make some better recordings, give better interviews, and look better in photographs. These things take time.
1995: HD begins to play more and more shows around Seattle with a host of bands no one but the band members themselves will ever hear of. They embark on a long series of Tuesday and Wednesday night slots at Seattle's more reputable clubs (ones with functioning P.A. systems and monitors) with the goal of one day landing a Friday or Saturday show. As the collective songwriting process gains momentum, the band begins to find a confident voice. Their shows become fun, drunken events for themselves and their friends. The band takes its first fumbling steps inside a recording studio, to little avail, though eventually, a six-song demo tape emerges. The idea that this tape will help them get shows or find someone to put out their records seems quaint in retrospect. They sell the tapes for $3 at shows. In subsequent years, copies of this tape will fetch as much as $5 on eBay.
1996: Band decides to "get its shit together." This coincides with three out of the four members losing their jobs. Evicted from the house they now share with five additional non-rent-paying freeloader friends, HD moves to a very suburban home nine blocks north, which means they also have to rent a rehearsal space downtown. Shows improve in quality and caliber, as HD becomes the unofficial house band at the Crocodile Café, where their goal of headlining a weekend bill becomes a regular reality. They perform on KCMU's legendary Live Room. More significant is the series of shows they play with Portland heroes and one-time Sub Pop sweethearts Hazel. But these small steps are nothing compared with the introduction of producer John Goodmanson [Bikini Kill, 30.06, Unwound, Goodness, Sleater-Kinney, Blonde Redhead] to the fold. Unhappy with the quality of their recordings to date, HD becomes convinced that a producer of Goodmanson's caliber will make all the difference. To their astonishment, they are absolutely correct. Rather than make a cheap, fast record, Goodmanson agrees to spend a weekend making demos at his studio, John & Stu's Place [which used to be Jack Endino's Reciprocal Recording, where countless legendary NW records were born, including Nirvana's Bleach]. Three songs emerge (among them "Private Helicopter" and "Terminal Annex"), and when the band returns home Sunday night/Monday morning at 2AM, they all sit in Jeff's car and listen to the mixes again and again. The demo tape attracts some minor attention from a couple of major labels, which amounts to little more than a few phone calls and a free meal. As a by-product of this attention, however, the tape falls in the hands of Greg Glover, a London Records intern who runs his own little bedroom label, the Arena Rock Recording Company. Greg loves the tape and encourages the band to send him more material, with an eye towards putting out a seven-inch single. A few months later, HD re-enters John & Stu's Place to record three more songs (including "Flagpole Sitta"). Glover is sufficiently delighted by the results to agree to bankroll a full-length, which will consist of five out of the six songs already recorded, and five more, which HD and Goodmanson record during the snowy winter months, days after Sleater-Kinney and Goodmanson finish making "Dig Me Out" in the same room. The total budget for the record is about $3,000, which is probably double the total amount the band has ever been paid for playing live.
1997: Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? is released in July by the Arena Rock Recording Company to glowing reviews in Magnet, Option, The Big Takeover, and many now-defunct pre-internet rock mags. The initial pressing is 1,200 copies with hand-screened cardboard covers that the band spends an ecstatic evening folding and assembling. HD plays at SXSW and CMJ. The record makes a respectable showing on college radio charts, and sells steadily in Seattle, New York, and a few other cities. By year's end, however, the band members are feeling like the momentum of the record's release has dissipated and are wondering if, after nearly four years together, they have gone as far as they're likely to go. They decide to take January off to ponder the future. Just before the holiday, Nelson sees a DJ from Seattle's commercial radio station, KNDD, on the street, introduces himself, and gives him a copy of the record.
1998: By January, "Flagpole Sitta" is the number one most requested song on KNDD, and is soon added to the station's rotation. Influential LA station KROQ soon follows suit, as do many stations around the country, and by late February, the initial pressing of Merrymakers has sold out. Reports come in that a station in Atlanta has taken to playing the song three times in a row. "Flagpole" is a hit. Major labels descend. The band signs to Slash/London because Arena Rock's Greg Glover has been hired there full-time. A van is bought. Day jobs are quit. Extensive touring from March-December, including four trips around the U.S., twice across Canada, select dates in Europe. Clubs, theaters, sheds, and full-blown sports arenas. Headlining slots (w/Spoon, Creeper Lagoon, Death Cab for Cutie-their first tour), support dates (w/ Grant Lee Buffalo, Violent Femmes, Semisonic), and countless radio festivals (w/Green Day, Soul Coughing, Barenaked Ladies, Wallflowers, Fastball, and every other band that had a hit that year). Video premieres on MTV less than a week after being shot. Band appears on The Late Show with David Letterman. Song achieves ubiquity-number one on radio charts, top 40 in Billboard, heavy rotation on MTV and VH1; appears in films, on TV, and during the seventh inning stretch at the world series. You should see the things they turned down. A second single, "Private Helicopter," is released in the fall, and, to no one's surprise, fails to capture the public's imagination the way its predecessor did, despite a pretty decent, and very expensive, video directed by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants that features helicopter footage of the band riding bikes across the 59th St. bridge (feelin' groovy). The clip airs twice. In late December, the exhausted members of Harvey Danger repair to John & Stu's Place to try to write songs for their follow-up, which they will enter the studio to record right away. The year ends with a live performance of "Flagpole Sitta" and "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" on Seattle's late night sketch comedy program Almost Live. [This, friends, is the short version of this story.]
1999: By March, HD has an album's worth of songs (almost), and begins production of their second LP at Bearsville Studios, near Woodstock, NY, where the snow is thigh high, and the herds of deer have no compunction about walking right up to the front door to say hello. The label is curiously absent from the recording process - not that anyone is complaining. Three weeks of hard, lonely work later, the record is nearly finished, and the band feels fiercely proud of what it considers to be a strong, unconventional record. HD and Goodmanson return to Seattle to put a few finishing touches on the record, which include guest appearances from friends Grant Lee Phillips, Ben Gibbard, Ken Stringfellow, Lois Maffeo, and others. A short while later, the label accepts the album and tells the band to get ready. And then... the wheels come off. Elaborate corporate reshuffling leaves the band's professional status in limbo. Not only is it unclear which company owns HD's contract, it's unclear who they can ask to find out. They're told to "sit tight" while "things" get "sorted out." It's June. (Though they don't know it, they will be sitting tight for more than a year.) They play nine live shows in the whole year.
2000: Early in the year, with still no idea when their record will come out, HD recruits two local musician friends, John Roderick (keyboards) and Mike Squires (second guitar), as sidemen at live shows. They continue to watch the momentum of their unlikely success dissipate. Barsuk Records, then a fledgling Seattle indie label run by friends of the band, offers to release the orphan LP, but legal complications intervene. The Pretenders invite HD to support them on a U.S. tour, but financial difficulties make it impossible. Everyone starts talking about getting jobs again. Then, in June, London (now London-Sire) declares that the contractual wrinkles have been ironed out, and that the wait is over. At long last, King James Version is released to little fanfare (but strong reviews) on September 12. The best indicator of the record's promotional campaign comes a week later, when MTV's 120 Minutes trumpets the debut of the video for lead-off single "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo," then inadvertently broadcasts the clip for "Flagpole Sitta" instead. And so it follows as the autumn drags on: HD tours to support the single for an album no one seems to know has been released. There are moments of glory-including a strong performance of "Sad Sweetheart" on The Late Late Show with Criag Kilborn, and a heroic bill with Foo Fighters in front of 15,000 reverent fans in West Palm Beach, FL just as the Bush-Gore battle was heating up-but generally speaking, the destiny of KJV is a photo negative of that of Merrymakers.
2001: After a few months of halfhearted live dates, and one truly disastrous weekend recording session, Nelson, Lin, Huffman, and Sult realize that playing in the band has ceased being enjoyable by even the most liberal definition, and that they aren't actually required to continue. Harvey Danger plays its final show April 21 (seven years to the day from their first) in Portland, sharing the bill with Quasi and Hazel, feeling both defeated and relieved.
2001-2003: Lin goes back to school. Huffman plays in a variety of projects (including the thriving Seattle band Love Hotel). Sult moves to Chicago and starts a new band, Bound Stems. Nelson becomes a partner in Barsuk Records, and a part-time DJ on Seattle/worldwide radio station KEXP, hosting the local music show, Audioasis. He also joins The Long Winters, a band fronted by his friend and former HD sideman John Roderick, as keyboard player and harmony vocalist. At various times, even though Huffman and Lin both collaborate separately with Nelson on a handful of songs, the idea of reuniting HD occurs to, and is rejected by, all three of them for a long list of reasons. Still...
2004: On February 1, Nelson, Huffman, and Lin enter Bear Creek Studios to record two co-written songs for nominal inclusion on Nelson's solo record. Ira Elliot from Nada Surf plays drums. The session goes better than anyone expects, and the trio, recognizing that they have unfinished business, agrees to start writing music again with no strings attached. They soon notice that April will bring the 10th anniversary of their first show, so they decide to do a one-off reunion at the Crocodile Café in Seattle. With Sult busy in Chicago (he sends his blessing), they again recruit Elliot to play drums. The show, with Nada Surf opening, is a huge success. A few more dates arise, including a show each in San Francisco and Los Angeles (each with Travis Morrison opening), and appearances on the mainstage of the Sasquatch Festival (on a bill with Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, New Pornographers, and The Postal Service, among many others) and a slot at Bumbershoot that sends a line all the way across the Seattle Center grounds for several hours to see them. Absent the frustrations of their major label experiences, or indeed, any pressure or expectation of any kind other than their own standards, the band is playing better than ever, with renewed power and purpose, and new songs are coming fast and furious. The decision to make the reunion official, and permanent, becomes obvious. In some ways, it doesn't feel like a reunion at all. Michael Welke is recruited as full-time drummer after acquitting himself masterfully at Bumbershoot, and the quartet ends the year by celebrating the (self-) release of a five-song holiday EP, "Sometimes You Have to Work on Christmas (Sometimes)" with a sold-out show at the Crocodile Café (Jon Brion opens). Though largely unadvertised, the EP's limited pressing of 1,000 sells out in three weeks.
2005: In February, just one year after the session that convinced them to get the band back together, Harvey Danger enters Robert Lang Studios in North Seattle with producers John Goodmanson and Steve Fisk (Screaming Trees, Beat Happening, Low, Geraldine Fibbers, Soul Coughing, Nirvana) to record the band's third full-length, Little By Little... The recording process runs more smoothly than either of their previous albums, and the results, though a major departure from the band's original sound, are thrilling. The band spends the remainder of the year preparing to release the album on its own label, Phonographic Records. The release date is September 13, exactly five years and one day after the release of King James Version.