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I have a funny story, it's pretty long, but just - wild things happen in life sometimes.
I was 19 and my friends and I were in a band in Maryland in 1999 (as I had been since around 1993. I played bass and was one of the band's 3 singers, along with the other guitarists). The drummer was driving his truck to take us all to see Fuel (just looked up the date/venue, thanks, internet - it was May 21, 1999, and we were going to Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland).
We dug Fuel but weren't familiar with the other bands opening. So we see Fuel, and Finger Eleven opened for them also (who we liked as well, maybe more later? I'm not sure if we did by then?) and also this other band that I didn't know.
So after this first band plays, I see them sitting over at their merch table. Their show had been really good! So I walk up and I'm looking at their stuff. And one of the guys in the band points at the CD on the table (his own album) and just calmly goes, "you should buy it. It's good". And I laughed, and was like, okay. But only if all you guys sign it. And they're like, HELL yeah! They all signed it. I still have it.
That band was then called Virgos Merlot (originally called The Devine, and eventually just Virgos). I later heard them a little on the radio ("Gain" mostly). The lead singer and main songwriter for The Devine, Virgos Merlot AND Virgos was a dude named Brett Hestla. The album was good. DAMN good (for the late 90s).
But keep in mind that Brett Hestla can fucking SING. And he can fucking WRITE GREAT SONGS. And keep in mind, they are BETTER live-- Virgos Merlot could PLAY these songs. The recording is great, and pretty solid, but really doesn't even fully capture how cool they were live. (If you wanna hear the full Signs of a Vacant Soul album, the link is at the end of this post - even just the first song.. the dynamics - check the end of the song, it's a sonic ASSAULT. And the album has a couple decent ballads, too.)
(Also, another YouTube link below- Virgos Merlot did a demo for Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" and it RIPS. Just a demo. But it's worth a listen.)
Flash forward a few years. I'm in another band in the mid-2000s, another STATE, as I now lived in Florida. (The band I was in at that point sounded kinda more like Fuel -- the one in 1999 didn't, we sounded more like Weezer).
Anyway, my band in the early/mid-2000s often played this club in Fort Lauderdale and Virgos (what they're called then) comes to town. And my band opens for them! Wild. (Couldn't find the date of the show and I don't even remember the name of the venue then to look it up- just a club. My old bands have all been scrubbed from the internet by time, and so have this venue's dates, apparently.)
Back then, Virgos had recently done another album called The Path of Least Resistance (that was REALLY damn good- the FIRST link below is just to "Ammunition", probably my favorite song on the album -- it has a real STP feel).
Path only has that one link on YouTube, the songs aren't even split off haha. Ah, the 2000s. And check that soaring vocal hook RIGHT off the bat in "Collapse", the album's first song, if you listen - the album is GREAT.
Brett was around doing other stuff for a while (I think he was friends with one of the guys in Creed- they were from Florida too). I think even Path gets a little Christian-y (I'm not sure) - but it sounds STELLAR. Just love the guy's voice and songwriting. If you want a SOLID rock band, man, this stuff is ridiculous.
Brett might still put stuff out, I should look it up. Or he might just produce more now. What a singer and songwriter though. Like, WAY better than Creed. Frustrating that bands like this got overlooked and stuff like Creed got so big.
Anyway, if you've read this whole thing, kudos, and hope you dig these tracks.
On this day 20 years ago, Burlington’s own #FingerEleven released their self-titled album which featured the cross genre hit ‘One Thing’.
“If I traded it all
If I gave it all away for one thing
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out
If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something”