HEX20YR RETROSPECTIVE- HXR002: SPARK LIGHTS THE FRICTION, "Cocaine Honeymoon" CDEP

By the time I had finished college and made my way back to Syracuse, I was curious as to what was going to come next for the label end of the zine I was doing.  I had released one record, and wasn’t sure if I would do more.  I suppose the right thing had to come along.

And as I soon discovered, some friends back in town had just started playing together in a new group.  A local punk/hardcore band called Set In Motion had been playing around for a little while now, but were wrapping up at this point.  Our friend Jon had done a stint, strangely enough, as the singer for One King Down and also returned to Syracuse.  A couple guys from Set In Motion, Jon, and Emmett Menke from another local punk group started jamming with Jon and chose the name Spark Lights the Friction (after a Shotmaker song, and foregoing other unfortunate monikers such as Bourne From Steam and Family In a Corner).

By the early Fall of ’99 the band was ready to play out and I ended up booking their first show for them.  No too much longer afterwards I approached them about doing a CD (because I still didn’t have much idea of how to press vinyl), and eventually the “Cocaine Honeymoon” CDEP was born at some point in 2000.  In another turn as a studio tag-along I ventured with the guys out to Albany for the weekend where the recording was to take place at a makeshift studio operated by engineer Brett Portzer, of the band Falkirk.  I distinctly recall that they were supposed to pick me up at a certain time and when that time had passed I thought they had just forgotten about me and took off.  Cell phones were pretty uncommon still and Emmett was the only guy in the band with one and I began calling him over and over in a panic, thinking they were somewhere on the I-90.  It turns out they were just getting lunch at the local diner before heading over and they were running late. I don’t know why I panicked as much as I did.  It was unusual.  And once the recording began things got even weirder.   

Grant had intended on doing about half the vocals, but when he heard his voice on tape he was very unsatisfied with it.  So he and Jon hashed it out to establish how the vocals would go, as Jon would be handling most of them instead.  Furthermore, their second guitarist, Jim Heffernan was doing a semester in France for school and he also did vocals in the band.  He gave his blessing for the band to play shows and record without him while he was away, but that left Jon to not only handle most of Grant’s vocals, but also Jims (as well as the lyrics he wrote).  It was kind of a wild process, but I personally thought it helped the band develop a personality and further solidify what they ended up becoming.  And a few months later Jim came back and began playing and recording as a four-piece once again.  But as far as the process of getting there, and whatever came afterwards, had it’s fun, as well as it’s challenges.  

                   Grant Johnson, at one of many shows played in Rochester

Spark Lights the Friction made a considerable impact upon Syracuse during the time they were around.  It was one of those situations where a large group of friends came together around a band and cheered them on, and that friendship spread to many others across the region.  During their tenure they ended up touring the US a couple of times with locals Darker Day Tomorrow, The August Prophecy, as well as Poison the Well and Thursday on different tours.  Their recorded output includes a pretty much unreleased demo, the CDEP I released, a split EP with Ruined In a Day, a compilation appearance, and a full length for Trustkill Records. 
I reached out to my old pal Jon Peters, who was the bassist/vocalist/raccoon for the band to wax sentimental about the whole thing:

             Jim Heffernan (left), Jon Peters (foreground), myself (sans glasses and with hair) watching on

R:  I’d like to start with some of the formation of the band.  You had just left One King Down and came back to Syracuse.  How did the other guys fit into the equation? 

J: At, or around the time I left OKD I resumed going to college and S.U. because I had previously taken a semester off.  I was already friends with Jim and Grant from school because we all lived in the same dorm for a while, and when I was back I fell back into hanging out with them.

There was a bunch of stuff that we had to figure out that I’m fuzzy on. For example, how we got connected with Emmett.  I think that connection was made because Jim and Grant knew him from high school.  

                                                 Emmett Menke

I remember there being all sorts of other shenanigans too that helped us all come together and figure out if and how we were going to start a band – jamming with other Syracuse musicians, talking to drummers, figuring out where we could be loud for a few hours.  There’s a ton there to recall, but I’d need help from the other fellas to fill in the blanks and help connect the dots.  

R: The music was decidedly quite a bit different from anything else you had done in the past, as well as different from most other bands that emerged from Syracuse at that time.  Was there an idea coming into the band to gear your sound a particular way? 

J: I don’t think (at least to my recollecting) that we said at the outset that we wanted to be a certain type of band or have a type of sound.  We just wrote and jammed on stuff that we found interesting and fun to play.  Part of that was everyone contributed ideas – riffs, parts, lyrics, etc. 

R:  Let’s talk about the recording of the EP.  It was pretty difficult from beginning to end, starting with me being super annoying, Jim being away in France, and concluding with you handling way more of the vocal duties than you had expected to do.

 

J: When I think back on it I don’t remember it as being difficult. It was kind of a crazy time and there were things that were probably a pain in the ass at the time, but I don’t really think back on it that way.
There is actually a lot that I laugh about whenever I think about it, or if it comes up in conversation with the dudes. For example, Brett, the guy who recorded us, did vocals at his apartment. He didn’t have a studio really in his place, so we needed to improvise a sound proof vocal room out of stuff Brett had at his place. So the “vocal booth” was a MacGyver’ed fort, where we took the egg foam off of a fold out couch-bed, curled it up and put the mic stand inside and put a pillow on top. I recorded vocals in a semi squat position so that I could fit totally within the booth-foam-fort-thing. It was ridiculous!
That was probably a pain in the ass thing, but now I just laugh at how goofy that whole experience was. But we dumped it to DAT so it paid off.

R: How about touring from this point. You all began to get out on the road more and had some very interesting meet-up’s on the road.

J: Yeah, we had some wild times. Strange characters, van problems. What band at the level we were at didn’t have those problems?

R:  People who remember the band always seem to associate your shows with the humor you and Jim had going, even though the music was very serious and well-crafted, the between-song banter was quite memorable.

J: That’s just how we are together. Something that I value from those days is how we all could laugh with one another. That’s just how my friendship Jim and Grant is. We crack each other up and it doesn’t really matter if it’s on stage, in the van, in private…we just get each other going and laugh.

I guess what you’re talking about is how that all happened on stage too. I think that was just a product of us having fun together and we acted like the audience was in on the joke…even though many of our jokes were inside jokes.

R: How often did Shirts As Pants (an acapella joke band between Jon and Jim) play out?
 
J: There were a ton of Shirts As Pants adhoc performances – in the van, waiting for shows to start, just hanging out. But there were very few times we actually did Shirts As Pants on stage. I think maybe only once or twice. I think.

                           the band's first show, before they officially had a name (1999)

R: Discuss a bit about moving on to Trustkill and what happened with that?

J: I remember Josh being sort of interested, but I think he wanted to make sure we were going to tour and work before offering to sign us. So he expressed some interest but let us go out on the road first.

It was funny to us because we played him a practice tape that we made at one point and he, no joke, told us we sounded like Phish!

The thing that I think made Josh want to sign us, not sure if this is true or not, was when we played a Quicksand cover at the Westcott and got kids to mosh. I feel like that was when he started to take us serious enough to want to get us on Trustkill. But I don’t know if I ever talked about it with him.

                               the lighter logo the band used for a bit

R: The band eventually dissolved, with Grant doing The Funeral full-time and Emmett moving into being a touring drummer-for-hire for awhile. Why did the band split up?
 
J: I think the wheels feel off due to a bunch of things going on in each of our lives. Emmett wanted to try out for a bunch of different, more known bands. I was mad and salty about that. It seems so trivial now, but I was upset. I was also having relationship trouble with my girlfriend at the time. I don’t know specifically what was motivating Jim and Grant.

Looking back, I think things had just run their course.

R: What’s your overall opinion on the EP and what that meant to you?
 
J: I’m proud of what we did. It has some moments that I really like and it has some moments that make me cringe. But whatever we were making music and having adventures so who cares if some of it or all of it is/was cringe worthy. All told, my time in SLTF, especially those early days on Hex, was an adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything. So many crazy stories came out of our time in that band! So I look at that EP, and all of our recordings really, as sort of trail markers on a nutty adventure path I took with a bunch of my friends.

After splitting up Jon and Jim eventually formed Bad Cops, who occasionally still play every now and again. Grant went on to play in The Funeral with me, and then did Night Owls (who released a record with Hex), and now Difficult. Emmett went on to be a touring drummer for a bunch of bands including Glasseater and Polar Bear Club for quite a few years before settling down.


And for the next week, their EP on Hex, "Cocaine Honeymoon" can be purchased digitally through the bandcamp for $3! Physical copies of this release are long gone, but the music remains.

                                              original CD layout masters