Band celebrates indie record deal

Almost every young band dreams of the day when members quit their other jobs and devote themselves full time to their music career. With careful planning, Ogden's The Gorgeous Hussies went about making it happen.

"Today -- June 15, 2009 -- is a huge day for us," said guitarist/vocalist Jordan Olsen on the day he spoke with the Standard-Examiner. "It is the last day of an 18-month goal we had to be a full-time band. We marked this day on the calendar back then and made a map of things we had to do. And we did it. I was the last to stop working outside the band, and it is now done.

"We set goals to be in a certain place financially and in a certain place with a new album, and with merchandise, and we made it. We are pretty proud of ourselves."

The Gorgeous Hussies took a big step toward independence in May, when they announced they had signed with Slothtrop Records, an indie label out of Madison, Wis. Their new deal includes the official release date on July 15 of the four-song EP "Pop Chanteuse," with a full-length, "Who Wants Nuance," in October.

The Hussies celebrate with a CD party release tonight at Brewskis.

A collective idea

Though the band, as it exists now, is celebrating its three-year anniversary, Olsen came up with the general idea of the Hussies roughly five years ago.

Said Olsen: "The concept was a collective of musicians, where the members were kind of interchangeable, and there was no set genre."

The collective was active for about two years, but the idea eventually fell by the wayside. Olsen said no one really felt ownership, and that sense of belonging was needed to make the group work.

To find full-time members, Olsen turned to Craigslist. There, he found John Chatelain, now one of the band's vocalists and bassist, and drummer Ryan Smith. Chatelain had studied jazz performance at the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, and finished his master's in literature at the University of Utah in May.

Smith has been a member of the Northern Utah rock/ska band Super Hero, and worked, until the recent quit-your-day-job decision, at Performance Audio of Salt Lake City.


"We kind of knew each other from that Ogden music scene, but we hadn't really played together. But it really worked out well."

NARRL Music

Olsen said he knew from the start that the Hussies would be something of a DIY project.

To get its music and merchandise out into the world, the group started its own company, NARRL Music.

"It stands for Not a Real Record Label," said Olsen. "But over time, it has turned into a real company, producing music and financing for us. It operates similar to a record label. We are our own client.

They self-released a previous CD, "Oh Hello," on NARRL in 2006, and a DVD called "Luscious Ladies," their last 100-percent produced and released NARRL project, due out this week.

When asked how the signing to Slothtrop would affect NARRL's operations, Olsen said, "The label came along at the last second of our 18-month plan, but it is a perfect fit. Essentially, it is a distribution and publishing deal. They are doing the physical production of our merchandise over the next three albums, marketing it and distributing. We still will handle the tour aspect, the band management aspects."

The show

Olsen says that no two Hussies shows are alike.

"This is not three guys up there playing a run-of-the-mill rock set. We do a lot of things now with looping pedals."

Looping pedals allow guitarists or other musicians to play a piece, record it, and then play it back and accompany themselves with the loop. They can add multiple layers as needed for practice or for depth in a live performance.

"Myself and John both have looping pedals," said Olsen. "I have an electric guitar, and an acoustic guitar next to that, and hand percussion. John is also sampling sounds -- he has a bass strapped to him, and then a keyboard in front of him, and then an electric upright (bass) in front of him. Ryan is also adding prerecorded tracks. It sounds so much bigger than what you are looking at."

The amount of music coming out of so few musicians is one reason the group wanted to release the "Luscious Ladies" DVD.

"On the DVD, you can see us build the music onstage. We did a six-camera video shoot. We even have cameras on our pedals, so you can see how they work."

Ready now

Olsen feels the band is ready in every way to go for the big musical dream full-bore.

"We said we were going to give this band five years, and in that time, it would either work out or it would not," he said. "You know how local bands tend to be. They get a buzz going, they do it halfway, and then just sort of take a long time fading away. We didn't want to do that. So at the start, we decided, by the five-year mark, we would be playing music full time."

Olsen said band members were very inspired by advice offered to beginners by local musician and KRCL radio host Brad Wheeler.

"He said that it is as simple as saving up four months of expenses and then just go for it, And I read that and said, 'I want to do that.' And it was not easy, especially for me, as I am married and have a family. Plus, I figured we didn't need just savings, but we needed a certain amount of press, and also to tour and build followings in certain cities. But we were sure we could do it with careful planning."

Olsen says the group's diverse background allowed them to do much of the work themselves.

"I was previously a marketing director for an online retail company, doing Web design and product placement. Ryan worked with professional audio gear and John was teaching and got his master's.

"So it is perfect -- Ryan is a master sound guy, I have the design and marketing background for booking and promotions, and John, he is so charismatic, and having studied music, is tied in with theory and composition. We balance each other. We are now trying to live the dream and use our skills to push ourself forward."

Posted By: The Gorgeous Hussies