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The Stuntman Story:Stuntman originated in 1994 following the dissolution of Boise Idaho's Treepeople, and Pullman Washington's Thin Section. Thin Section and Treepeople had played many shows together, and done some brief touring in the Northwest in the early nineties. Around the time (1993) Thin Section moved from Pullman to Portland, John Polle started pulling double duty in both bands filling in for the recently departed T. Dallas Reed who had moved over from the bass to guitar in effort to fill the gaping wound when Doug Martsch left Treepeople to begin work on Built To Spill. At this point it was inevitable that Thin Section would be no more as John spent all his time touring with the much more renowned and popular Treepeople, so bass player Sean Lennon and drummer P.J. Rogalski moved to Seattle, while John Polle moved to Boise to play full time in Treepeople. Not long after all the movement The Treepeople disbanded, and John Polle and Scott Schmaljohn enlisted former Thin Section bass player Sean Lennon to join them in their new project that was as yet unnamed. John and Scott had been playing with drummer Mike Rundle (Sleestacks) under the name Drysocket while waiting for Lennon's broke ass to sell enough wine and cheese to effete Wallingford snobs to pay for his move. Upon arrival Lennon learned the "Drysocket" setlist which at the time consisted of songs off of the last Treepeople record Actual Re-enactment, and some redesigned Thin Section songs. The Treepeople songs were Feed Me, Heinz Von Foerster, Bootstraps, and Bag of Wood. The Thin Section songs consisted of Car Crash, The Devil, and The Right Channel. The set was rounded out with two new originals: Chickens Don't Have Fingers, and Watch. The name "Drysocket" lasted a couple of months until one night after practicing at the Crazy Horse, and hanging out at the billiard bar across the alley, the boys started reminiscing about Burt Reynolds, and the film Hooper in particular. It was decided then and there as a salute to Jan Michael Vincent's battle with the soup that the band would no longer be known as Drysocket, and would be foisted upon the disinterested Boise public as STUNTMAN.
At this time the band was a fired up and efficient unit, writing a bunch of songs, and practicing as much as possible. Barbara Dollarhide who had managed Treepeople, as well as other talented artists such as Mike Johnson and Hazel, signed on as manager to guide this witless crew. Under the steady guidance of Babs, Stuntman was soon headlining venues in Seattle such as The Crocodile Cafe, The Off Ramp, The Rebar, and The O.K. Hotel, along with Portland hotspots E.J.s and venerable club legend The Satyricon. Also early 94 saw the band record its first demo with John Goodmanson at John and Stu's in Ballard. This demo was good enough to earn the boys a couple of slots at both CMJ and SXSW, and even got written up in Magnet Magazine AS A DEMO! Seeing as how this demo tape was so groung-breakingly, ball-blastingly amazing, Twitcher, Sonic Bubblegum, and Dustbowl records all took songs from it to release a flurry of 7" wax in early 1995.
Babs had also managed to rustle up a full length one-off contract with New York City's own Link Records, and Stuntman set off once again to John and Stu's in Seattle to record their self titled debut with John Goodmanson. While not the finest sounding, nor most cohesive record, it did contain some pop gems such as "Slaves", "Wax Pattern", and "The Devil". On the darker side "Bleed" was a lorax-like number mowing over and detroying all not firmly bolted down, and "The Feminist" is an axe-grinding wall of country confusion complete with two overdrivin lapsteels. Take that Nashville! Much touring was done in support of Stuntman by Stuntman, and throughout the year they played with all sorts of cool bands like Heavy Vegetable, Mercury Rev, Three Mile Pilot, Pee, Fitz Of Depression, Harvey Danger, The Melvins, Gashuffer, Green Magnet School, 30.06, Polvo, Archers Of Loaf, Overwhelming Colorfast, Knapsack, Caustic Resin, Dirt Fisherman, House of Large Sizes, Archers of Loaf, New Radiant Storm King, Kid Corduroy, Hell Upside Down, Citizen's Utilities, The Delusions, Bloodloss, Built To Spill, and The Presidents of The United States Of America. Yeah you heard right, we played many a show with those ding-dongs, including no less than two ASCAP showcases.
As 1996 rolled around, we deciced we wanted to put out another record, and hopefully this time on a label who would distribute the record beyond the gates of their storage facility. After turning down a 12 album deal (12 Freaking albums! Like we're freaking Prince!) with Alias which would net us an up front advance somewhere in the triple figures (think hundreds), we set out to dinners with Atlantic, Capital, Warner Bros, and Mercury Records. Mercury was hot to sign us, but we managed to cool that deal by passing out in the van hung-over, and NOT SHOWING UP TO THE MEETING where we were set to get an offer. That'll learn ya Mercury Records! I wasn't looking forward to a $25,000 advance, new equipment, and a new van AT ALLl! No SIR! We were much happier to keep loading our fucked up broken equipment, into our fucked up broken van, to play for the same fucked up broken people. Lucky for us the good folks at Mag Wheel records had the foresight to make our dreams a reality as they signed us to another one-off album deal. We diligently went to work writing this record in our Friend Tara's basement, which interestingly enough also housed Built To Spill, who were in the midst of writing "Perfect From Now On". We headed to Seattle in the fall of 1996 to record our Magnum Opus at Avast! studios in Wallingford with the legendary Bruce Calder at the helm. Bruce had most recently been working as Ric Ocaseks engineer, but also had recorded some early Green River, and later the Nada Surf album with the alternative music hit about being popular in High School. During the recording of The American Fadeout, Babs had decided to quit the music management business after telling Ahmet Ertugen that he didn't know shit from shinola (I think in reference to the JUned album. Apparently Ahmet didn't feel it was Shinola) and also after seeing cell phones for sale in a vending machine in Japan. My guess is she really quit due to idiots like us sleeping through meetings with major labels, but this is merely conjecture. After Barb quit certain underlying tensions came to the fore and members drifted into other projects and interests, so the band dissolved, and tens of people were upset, and then forgot all about us.
Nowadays, John Polle can be found in Tuscon Arizona with his completely ruling band The Solace Bros.
Scott is still very active in the Boise scene playing in both The Hand, and The Treatment , and working as a graphic designer.
Sean Lennon lives in San Francisco and opened the legendary Arrow Bar with some friends. When not ruling soundsystems across the city as DJ !ExcitableRooster! he also plays in a filthy latin street funk unit called Off Campus.
Mike Rundle moved to Madison Wi. to play in System and Station. Then he moved back to Boise and is playing in a great band called Low-Fi.
