Billboard
September 12, 2002

Tonic Bridges Old and New with Universal’s ‘Head On Straight’
By Catherine Applefeld Olson

While elixirs often mellow with time, guitar-driven melody maker Tonic cranks it up on its third set, Head On Straight, due Sept. 24 from Universal Records.
Nowhere does the trio’s current musical statement resound more strongly than in granite-edged first single “Take Me As I Am,” which opens with a weighty guitar riff then reveals the pop hooks that first separated the band from the pack in 1997. The single shipped to rock radio Aug. 20.
“It’s a bridge: it’s a great way to experience the next step of Tonic,” singer/songwriter/guitarist Emerson Hart says. “It’s a great way to start lyrically. We’re not about image. We stake our entire career on the strength of our songs.”
Bridging the band’s previous work—it’s platinum-plus debut album, Lemon Parade, and the follow-up, Sugar--with the new album is at the heart of Universal’s marketing campaign.
“The band has such a strong base. They’ve done all the work already. So it’s just a matter of connecting the dots between their previous album and this new one, which isn’t hard to do,” says tom Derr, Universal records VP of marketing.
Label reps got out their felt-tip pen this summer during the Jeep World Outside festival, on which Tonic dished up old and new material alike alongside rockers Sheryl Crow, Train, and others.
“Rock radio is still dealing with aggressive rock/rap trend,” says Howard Leon, Universal VP of rock radio promotions. “But the meat and potatoes of rock and alternative radio still lies in he craftsmanship and appeal of artists like Tonic.”
“This song rocks,” says Greg Patrick, PD at WAVF Charleston, S.C. who is trying to book the band for a radio show. “They write great rock songs and hopefully this one will take off,” he says. “I am firmly of the belief that some of these core bands from three or four years ago are still relevant. I’m not willing to cast them aside just because they’re more mainstream.
For the band, early mainstream success ushered in not only tremendous opportunity but the desire to step back and take it all in.
For one, Hart bid farewell to Los Angeles, where bandmates Jeff Russo and Dan Lavery still make their home, and hung his shingle in Nashville. Mush of Head On Straight was written in the initial year “off,” in which Hart says he holed down and let Nashville’s “bucolic setting” wash over him.
“I needed that time to get my head together. We had always been touring, always on the road, “he explains. “ I wanted to make sure the next record would be coming from fresh eyes and ears.”
The trio hammered out finishing touches in Hart’s basement during a rendezvous, and found their creative muse leading them down a harder-edged road.
“We wanted to make a rock record,” hart says. “Sugar had rock moments but it was a little more introspective musically, a little more mellow. We wanted to punch it heavy this time.
To get the job down, they turned to veteran producer Bob rock, whose “laid back efficiency and Maui Hawaii studio-setting provided a welcome change after the draining experience of self-producing Sugar, according to Hart.
Of that experience, Hart says, “It was exhausting. We couldn’t stay focused and there was really no neutral party. This time it was a great experience. We enjoyed recording music again, and he was able to bring things out of us—and particularly out of me as a singer—that we hadn’t been able to capture before.”
Tonic found another new partner in manager Irving Azoff, with whom the band signed after Sugar. Of the relationship, Hart says, “Irving came to us and said, ‘Let’s take the band to the next level.’ I can’t say enough good things about the was he’s helped me as an artist.”