Ataris Steps Into Bright Spotlight with New Album
By: By MARK WYCKOFF - Scripps Howard News Service
April 28th 2003 2:00pm
Where was he? Suddenly Ataris' bassist Mike Davenport wasn't so sure.
He was supposed to be in the heart of the Midwest _ Kansas City, Mo., to be exact, playing a club called The Beaumont _ but the scene outside seemed to prove otherwise.
"I'm looking out a window into the club's back patio and they've got a big sand pit with people playing beach volleyball," he said, on the phone during a post-soundcheck lull. "And they've got a Corona tent set up and palm trees and everything. It looks like freakin' California. Makes me miss home."
Touring is nothing new for the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Ataris. By Davenport's estimation, the punk-edged rock quartet has toured the world three times and the United States 20 times. But its current tour is a milestone: It's the band's first as a headliner, and its first as a major-label act.
The band _ which features singer-songwriter Kris Roe, 26; drummer Chris "Kid" Knapp, 25; guitarist Johnny Collura, 30; and Davenport, 32 _ spent its first five years as a successful indie act, recording several successful albums for Kung Fu Records. "End is Forever," released in 2001, hit No. 14 on Billboard's Top Independent Albums chart. All totaled between 1997 and 2002, The Ataris had sold more than 300,000 albums in the U.S., huge numbers for an indie band.
Last year, when Columbia Records came calling, The Ataris decided to take the major-label jump.
"We had taken the indie thing as far as it could go," Davenport said. "We had talked to majors early on, but we never had the right bargaining power."
The Ataris' debut CD for Columbia, "So Long, Astoria," was released March 4 and sold more than 44,000 copies in its first week, good enough to debut at No. 24 on Billboard's Top 200 album chart.
"The whole thing has been amazing," Davenport said. ". . . We knew we delivered a great record. But we're amazed at how much Columbia has backed it.
Everything just steamrolled. It's mind-boggling on one hand, and yet on the other it's not, because it's been such a long, gradual process for us. We've worked hard to get this." The biggest perk of being signed to a major, Davenport said, is the "sheer volume of support."
"Columbia told us to stop and take a break and decide what we wanted to say," he said. "Sept. 11 happened right around then, which really affected us all _ especially Johnny, who's from New York and actually used to work as a commodities assistant in the first World Trade Center tower. Several people he knew were killed in the attack."
The band spent the next 15 months writing, demoing and recording the album _ an eternity for a group used to recording its indie albums in three or four weeks.
Conceptually, "So Long, Astoria" takes its inspiration from an idea expressed in Richard Hell's novel "Go Now." In the book, the punk pioneer theorized that memory can transcend the experience that generated the memory.
"That really hit home with me," said Roe, the band's chief songwriter, in a press release about the CD. "That's how I try and structure my life: to try to do what will produce the best memories for later."
When writing the new album, Roe got in his car and drove around to places where he grew up, places he used to live. As he moved from place to place, he took tons of Polaroids, trying to "steal back" his memories. At 2 a.m., he'd sit in his car and scribble down lyrics. "I did everything I could to make this record more vivid and detailed," he said.
Roe writes a heartfelt apology to his daughter in "The Saddest Song," hoping she'll grow up to understand why her dad's work took him away from home so often, and traces the spiritual kinship between Emily Dickinson, Kurt Cobain and other tragic poetic souls on "Unopened Letter to the World."
"Kris is a true artist," Davenport said, praising his bandmate's gift for lyrical imagery. "For every two good songs I bring in for an Ataris record, Kris brings in 15 great songs."
 Copyright 2003 Scripps Howard News Service
| 
