Tonic (band)
Encyclopedia
Tonic is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rock band that has earned two Grammy nominations to date. The band was formed in 1993 by Emerson Hart
Emerson Hart
Emerson Hart is a songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and producer. He grew up in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.-Biography:Emerson Hart is the lead singer and songwriter of the alternative rock band Tonic...

 and Jeff Russo
Jeff Russo
Jeff Russo is a songwriter, composer, guitarist, vocalist and producer.Founding member, lead guitarist, co-songwriter in the American rock band Tonic...

. Later members have included Dan Lavery
Dan Lavery
Dan Lavery is a professional musician who has been nominated for two Grammy-awards as part of the band Tonic. Lavery joined Tonic after the band had recorded Lemon Parade, and has been a part of Tonic ever since. When Tonic went on hiatus in the 2004, Lavery embarked on songwriting for motion...

, Kevin Shepard, and Dan Rothchild. Signed to a recording contract in 1995, the band released its debut album Lemon Parade
Lemon Parade
Lemon Parade is Tonic's first album, released in 1996. The album has sold 1,300,000 copies to date, and reached platinum status in the United States. Tonic released a live EP with enhanced material called Live and Enhanced based on the success of this album...

 in 1996. The single "If You Could Only See
If You Could Only See
"If You Could Only See" is a song by the American rock band Tonic. The song was released as part of the band's debut album, Lemon Parade. It remains Tonic's highest charting single in the United States, Canada, and Australia...

" reached No. 11 on the Billboard Airplay Hot 100, and Lemon Parade itself reached platinum status
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

.

Tonic spent much of the next two years touring, adding to its reputation as a relentlessly gigging band. In addition to extensive touring Tonic produced other work, including songs for feature film soundtracks. After self-producing its 1999 album Sugar and releasing its third album Head on Straight
Head on Straight
Head on Straight is Tonic's third album, released in 2002. It was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 45th Grammy Awards and the track "Take Me As I Am" was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal...

 in 2002, the band went on hiatus beginning in 2004 while its members pursued other musical endeavors. The band became active again in late 2008, embarking on a tour and releasing a greatest-hits compilation, all of which served as a prelude to their fourth studio album, 2010's Tonic
Tonic (Tonic album)
Mixing and post-production carried on into 2010, and the band worked with Doug Sax to master the recording. The vocal track for to "Torn to Pieces" was recorded in Nashville. The track "Release Me" was the first single released from the album, becoming available to radio stations on March 23, 2010....

.

History

Tonic was founded by Emerson Hart and guitarist Jeff Russo, long-separated childhood friends who randomly crossed paths at a Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 area pool hall in 1993. The pair quickly began collaborating on music writing, and soon added bass player Dan Rothchild, whom they met at venue named the Kibitz room. The final addition to the band was drummer Kevin Shepard, who was recruited at an L.A. venue named Masker's Cafe. The newly formed group performed gigs around the Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 area prior to signing their first professional recording contract in 1995. Earning a reputation as a "relentlessly gigging" band, Tonic played over 300 shows in less than two years during the mid to late 1990s.

Teaming with producer Jack Joseph Puig
Jack Joseph Puig
Jack Joseph Puig is a Grammy Award-winning music engineer and producer with a long track record of successful productions, including the mid-1990s production of Tonic. Puig also worked with Hole, Jellyfish, The Black Crowes, John Mayer, Weezer, Fiona Apple, Green Day, The Counting Crows, No Doubt,...

, Tonic released their debut album Lemon Parade
Lemon Parade
Lemon Parade is Tonic's first album, released in 1996. The album has sold 1,300,000 copies to date, and reached platinum status in the United States. Tonic released a live EP with enhanced material called Live and Enhanced based on the success of this album...

 on July 15, 1996. Music critic Shawn M. Haney said of the album that, "The record as a whole is full of the heavy, distortion-laden Tonic sound, and guitars that make them who they are." Singles for the songs "Open Up Your Eyes" and "If You Could Only See
If You Could Only See
"If You Could Only See" is a song by the American rock band Tonic. The song was released as part of the band's debut album, Lemon Parade. It remains Tonic's highest charting single in the United States, Canada, and Australia...

", were released in 1996 and 1997 respectively. The single "If You Could Only See" received the honor of being Rock Radio's most played song of 1997, and Lemon Parade as an album reached platinum status
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

. Music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

s were created for the songs "Open Up Your Eyes," "If You Could Only See," and "Soldier's Daughter." The Lemon Parade album spent 57 weeks on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 chart, reaching a peak of #28 during the week of August 2, 1997. By February 2003 Lemon Parades running total of albums sold had reached 1.3 million copies.

Dan Lavery
Dan Lavery
Dan Lavery is a professional musician who has been nominated for two Grammy-awards as part of the band Tonic. Lavery joined Tonic after the band had recorded Lemon Parade, and has been a part of Tonic ever since. When Tonic went on hiatus in the 2004, Lavery embarked on songwriting for motion...

 replaced Rothchild on bass in December 1996, and around this same time period drummer Shepard ceased full-time activity with the band for family and personal reasons. The year 1997 marked the band's first contribution to an original soundtrack, recording the song "Eyes of Sand" for the Scream 2 soundtrack. Continuing their work on film soundtracks into 1998, Tonic recorded the song "Flower Man" for The X-Files: The Album
The X-Files: The Album
The X-Files: The Album was the soundtrack album by various artists released in conjunction with the 1998 movie, The X-Files. The album peaked at #26 on Billboard's chart and it was certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of 500,000 copies....

, and performed a cover of the song "Everybody's Talkin'" for the Clay Pigeons
Clay Pigeons
Clay Pigeons is a 1998 German/American crime-comedy film written by Matt Healy and directed by David Dobkin. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as Clay Bidwell, Vince Vaughn as Lester Long, and Janeane Garofalo as Agent Shelby.-Plot:...

 soundtrack. Tonic also performed a cover of the song "Second Hand News" for the album "Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours." The band finished 1998 by contributing a live version of the song "Open Up Your Eyes" to the charitable album Live in the X Lounge
Live in the X Lounge
Live in the X Lounge is a series of albums released by Birmingham, Alabama's former alternative rock radio station, WRAX.Though the station can no longer be found on the air, this series of live performances was produced while the station was known as 107.7 The X...

. On March 1, 1999 the band released the now out-of-print Live and Enhanced CD, which featured an acoustic version of "If You Could Only See" and the previously unreleased music video of "Soldier's Daughter". In 2000, Tonic allowed their song "Mean To Me" from their album Sugar to be released as a single from the soundtrack album for the Warner Bros. film Gossip, which was directed by Academy Award-winning director Davis Guggenheim
Davis Guggenheim
Philip Davis Guggenheim is an Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. His credits as a producer and director include Training Day, The Shield, Alias, 24, NYPD Blue, ER, Deadwood, and Party of Five and the documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for 'Superman...

. The band appeared in the music video for the song, which featured clips from the film as well as actors from it, who seemingly appear to be interacting with the band via webcam as they perform the song.

Sugar and later work

The band returned to the studio to self-produce their second album. Released on November 9, 1999, the album title Sugar shared the same name as the fifth track on the recording. The creative and collaborative process spanned several geographic locations including Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

, and a 15000 square feet (1,393.5 m²) mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

, where actual recording for the album was performed. "Knock Down Walls" and "You Wanted More" were charting singles released off the record, with the latter having first appeared on the soundtrack to the movie American Pie
American Pie (film)
American Pie is a 1999 teen comedy film written by Adam Herz. American Pie was the directorial film debut of brothers Paul and Chris Weitz, and the first film in the American Pie film series...

. With Shepard no longer part of the band, Peter Maloney played drums on the album, although Joey Waronker
Joey Waronker
Joseph "Joey" Waronker is an American drummer and music producer. He is the son of record producer Lenny Waronker and singer/actress Donna Loren; his younger sister is musician Anna Waronker; and his grandfather is record executive and professional violinist Simon Waronker. He has three other...

 filled in for the single "You Wanted More". Music videos for the songs "You Wanted More" and "Mean to Me" were created as part of the album's promotion. Tonic appeared on the television shows Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
Late Night with Conan O'Brien is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien that aired 2,725 episodes on NBC between 1993 and 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musical and comedy performances. Late Night aired weeknights at 12:37 am...

 and "The Martin Short Show" in late 1999 as part of additional promotion. Sugar spent eight total weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, reaching a peak of #81 in its first week of release.

A cover of the song "East Bound and Down" for the King of the Hill original television soundtrack rounded out the group's output for the year 1999. The band later contributed a performance of "Mean To Me" to the fourth installment in the charitable Live in the X Lounge album series.

Tonic took a break from constant touring and recording, time which Hart used to, "...make sure the next record would be coming from fresh eyes and ears" after he moved to a new home in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. In 2002 the band began collaborating with producer Bob Rock
Bob Rock
Robert Jens Rock, , is a Canadian musician, sound engineer, and record producer best known for producing bands such as Aerosmith, The Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, 311, Metallica, Our Lady Peace, The Offspring and most recently Bush.-Payola$ and Rock and Hyde:Rock began his music career in Langford,...

 on their next studio recording. In contrast to the "exhausting" experience of self-producing Sugar, producer Rock's "laid-back efficiency" and Hawaii studio location provided a welcome change. The resulting studio album, Head on Straight
Head on Straight
Head on Straight is Tonic's third album, released in 2002. It was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 45th Grammy Awards and the track "Take Me As I Am" was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal...

, was released on September 1, 2002.

While still billed as a three-piece band, Joey Waronker performed much of the drumming on "Head On Straight," and the band also utilized drummer Kevin Murphy for some live performances during this time period. The band also enlisted the help of Keyboardist Will Holis. Hart and Russo both also played piano and Rhodes synth respectively on the record. Head on Straight charted on the Billboard 200 for one week, where it was #141. In its review of the album, Rolling Stone described it by saying it was, "...less rootsy and harder-rocking than previous efforts."
In March 2003 Tonic embarked on an acoustic tour, and as band member Russo said, they were hoping to, "...bring things back to a level where we remember what it's all about."

Hiatus

While Head on Straight had sold 34,000 copies by February 2003, in 2003 the band received two Grammy nominations, one for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "Take Me As I Am", and one for Best Rock Album. While the band's activity began to diminish, they participated in the annual The Rock Boat
The Rock Boat
The Rock Boat is an annual rock-themed "floating music festival at sea."The Rock Boat concept was born in 2001 with a joint venture from Gainesville, FL alternative rock band Sister Hazel and Atlanta, GA travel company Sixthman in a partial charter aboard the Carnival Jubilee. Sister Hazel was also...

 music-themed cruise, performing there in 2004 for instance. The grind of constant touring over the previous seven years had taken its toll on the band, and each member needed some space.

Tonic went on hiatus beginning in 2004, all three members began working on other projects unrelated to Tonic. Hart released a solo album entitled Cigarettes and Gasoline on July 17, 2007. Russo became part of the band Low Stars
Low Stars
Low Stars is a musical project of Dave Gibbs and Chris Seefried, that captures the sound of classic bands like Crosby, Stills, and Nash and The Eagles.- History :...

, who released a self-titled CD in 2007. Lavery did song writing for projects including the feature-length movies The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ
The Passion of the Christ is a 2004 American drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...

 and Elektra
Elektra (2005 film)
Elektra is a 2005 superhero film directed by Rob Bowman. It is a spin-off from the 2003 film Daredevil, starring the Marvel comics character Elektra Natchios . The story follows Elektra, an international assassin whose weapon of choice is a pair of sai.For the screenplay, Zak Penn, Stuart Zicherman...

, and began playing bass on tour for The Fray
The Fray
-Literature:*Fray, a phenomenon in Terry Pratchett's The Carpet People*Fray , a comic book series by Joss Whedon**Melaka Fray, titular character of the comic book series-Music:*"Fray", a song from the album 14 Shades of Grey by Staind...

 in March 2007. Commenting on this time period, Russo said, "It wasn’t like we broke the band up. Everyone just went to their own corner and did their own thing. We figured when it was time to get back together it will happen."

Band Reactivation

The first verifiable account that Tonic was reuniting came in November 2008 via an announcement from band member Russo, confirming new tour dates and a forthcoming studio album. "We're [planning on] getting together to write some new material," Russo said. "Over the last 6 months or so we've been talking about it. We've been doing different things for the last 6 years, and we all decided that we missed rocking."
Officially active again, Tonic had already played their first show together in many years on September 16, 2008 at a venue in Antioch, Illinois. As part of the band's 2009 tour, a greatest hits compilation titled "A Casual Affair:The Best of Tonic" was released. The album featured live versions of the songs "Irish" and "Sugar" in addition to an acoustic version of "You Wanted More." November 2009 marked the band's inclusion in the video game Band Hero
Band Hero
Band Hero is a spinoff video game as part of the Guitar Hero series of music video games, released by Activision on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS consoles...

, as the track "If You Could Only See" was a playable song in the game.

After the year 2010 began, Tonic announced that their self-titled fourth studio album, Tonic
Tonic (Tonic album)
Mixing and post-production carried on into 2010, and the band worked with Doug Sax to master the recording. The vocal track for to "Torn to Pieces" was recorded in Nashville. The track "Release Me" was the first single released from the album, becoming available to radio stations on March 23, 2010....

, would be released on May 4, 2010. The album was primarily recorded over the span of a month during fall 2009 at Conway Studios in Hollywood. Pete Maloney also continued his longtime association with the band by playing drums on the album. The album was jointly produced by Tonic and Nathaniel Kunkel, with the song "Release Me" chosen as the first single from the album. A promotional behind the scenes tour of Conway Studios hosted by Emerson Hart is available on Amazon.com's Tonic store and YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

. In an official press release for the album, bandmember Hart said about Tonic that, "When we play music together it feels like going home. Getting together, playing some rock-n-roll, it's the best feeling in the world." The self-titled album spent one week on the Billboard 200 chart, where it ranked 150. Tonic is currently on tour in conjunction with the release of their self-titled album.

Current personnel

  • Emerson Hart
    Emerson Hart
    Emerson Hart is a songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and producer. He grew up in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.-Biography:Emerson Hart is the lead singer and songwriter of the alternative rock band Tonic...

     - Lead and Backing Vocals, Rhythm acoustic and Electric Guitars.
  • Jeff Russo
    Jeff Russo
    Jeff Russo is a songwriter, composer, guitarist, vocalist and producer.Founding member, lead guitarist, co-songwriter in the American rock band Tonic...

     - Lead and Rhythm electric and acoustic Guitars, Backing Vocals, Rhodes, String machine, and Slide Guitar.
  • Dan Lavery
    Dan Lavery
    Dan Lavery is a professional musician who has been nominated for two Grammy-awards as part of the band Tonic. Lavery joined Tonic after the band had recorded Lemon Parade, and has been a part of Tonic ever since. When Tonic went on hiatus in the 2004, Lavery embarked on songwriting for motion...

     - Bass Guitars, Backing Vocals, Rhodes, Piano.
  • Pete Maloney - Drums.
  • Miles McPherson - Drums

Discography

Studio Albums:
  • Lemon Parade
    Lemon Parade
    Lemon Parade is Tonic's first album, released in 1996. The album has sold 1,300,000 copies to date, and reached platinum status in the United States. Tonic released a live EP with enhanced material called Live and Enhanced based on the success of this album...

     (1996)
  • Sugar (1999)
  • Head on Straight
    Head on Straight
    Head on Straight is Tonic's third album, released in 2002. It was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 45th Grammy Awards and the track "Take Me As I Am" was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal...

     (2002)
  • Tonic
    Tonic (Tonic album)
    Mixing and post-production carried on into 2010, and the band worked with Doug Sax to master the recording. The vocal track for to "Torn to Pieces" was recorded in Nashville. The track "Release Me" was the first single released from the album, becoming available to radio stations on March 23, 2010....

     (2010)


Other Albums:
  • Live and Enhanced (1999)
  • A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic
    A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic
    A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic is a compilation album of the band Tonic, released in 2009. The album was released in conjunction with the band reuniting for a national tour from late 2008 to late fall of 2009...

    (2009)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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