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Hypothetical scenario: Youre an unsigned and decidedly underdog band thats been picked up by a major record label.
The ironic M. Night Shyamalan twist: It appears this whole timeyouwere the one rolling the dice.
Lets allow the band to count the ways.
First a quick remedial session.
In 1994, Local H put out a bunch of feelers in search of a record deal.
Polydor A&R rep Joe Bosso took a shine to the Local H boys and saw their potential.
Coincidentally, Polydor was in the process of merging with Island Records.
Unlike U2, Local H still had a few ladder rungs to climb to reach superstardom.
Their debut,Ham Fisted, hit stores in January 1995.
Lucas wasnt shocked by the lack of fanfare.
Lucas took this as a positive: Island committing to their long-term development courtesy of a sophomore release.
I dont think we realized how precarious our position was at the time, he says.
We thought,Yeah, these guys are going to give us time to grow.
But from things I later heard behind the scenes, everyone was pressuring [Bosso] to drop us.
By the time album No.
These unit-shifting metrics renewed Islands faith in Local H. The label green-lit album No.
3, thereby retracting the sword of Damocles hanging above Lucass and Danielss heads.
I wanted to make a record that 13-year-old me would have fucking loved, Lucas says.
And here, I finally had access to all the materials to do that.
And one day I heard Killer Queen on the radio and thought,Weve gotta get this guy.
No interference, no second-guessing.
At long last, Local H was exactly where they wanted to be.
And they werent about to squander the opportunity.
Songs creatively segue from one to another, with callbacks sprinkled in like finely ground Adderall.
The lyrics alternate from earnest and hopeful to world-weary cynical and back again.
The wind was at our back and everybody at Island was marshaling the troops, Lucas says.
And then the merger happened.
This was not akin to that time Polydor fused into Island Records a.k.a.
the good for Local H merger.
In fact, this was anything but good news.
Lucas describes the so-called friendly takeover as a bloodbath.
When the smoke cleared, Lucas and Daniels couldnt track a familiar face at their own label.
And just like that, Local H and their pending masterpiece went from high-priority to Who are these guys?
Universals priority in the wake of the merger was ensuring that U2 didnt defect to another label.
And I get that.
Everybodys got families and theyve got to keep their jobs, and if U2 goes away, thats it.
With this, any lingering momentum was dialed down to zero.
And the ChicagoTribuneupped the ante, declaring it the second-best album of the year.
Unfortunately, the album was now beyond commercial resuscitation.
Meanwhile, the harder-edged fare began leaning into a far more Limp Bizkity direction.
In 1998, thePack Up the Cats touring schedule saw them sharing bills with rapping white guys in shorts.
The fun was gone.
They set to work on a new collection of songs for what would be their fourth major-label release.
But the labels confidence in the band if not basic awareness was low.
Lucas felt he was being asked to justify his existence.
Further dismayed by the process, he took a fatalistic approach to pitching the new album to his label.
He submitted the demos and invited Universal to drop them if they werent onboard.
Universal wasnt, and did exactly that.
Since then, Local H have put out several studio albums on a slew of independent labels.
So signing with Island was the right thing to do.
