Wash wear their disappointment

Wash were the first New Zealand band to sign an overseas record deal without signing here first. Now they're splitting up.

A local band signing to a New York record label was big news in 2002. The hoopla was fantastic. TV news and other media jumped on the story. The band - Auckland's rapping hard rockers Wash - couldn't believe their wildest rock'n'roll dreams had come true.

Mark Klein and Danny Wright, two bigwigs from Hydrogen Records in the Big Apple, had flown to Auckland to sign Wash. The record executives claimed the Kiwi band would be their "flagship" act.

For more than two years Wash clung to their dream of making it big in the United States. Their debut album was ready to go when they signed to Hydrogen and the label said it was going to release it, get the band to tour the States and grow them in the hard-to-crack American market.

The band's flights and hotels in the US were booked for their visit in September 2002 but just days before they were booked to fly, Hydrogen phoned to say the trip was off. The label said it wanted to work on getting the band's "story" known in the States before they flew them over.

Now, it's all over. Wash are splitting up without even playing a note on US soil.

"That was the first curve ball Hydrogen threw us," says singer Ivan Beets of that phone call.

"I don't think they got the response they were intending and, from that, they went a bit cold. They were still in contact with us and working with us, but from there it never really recovered. That stole a lot of our excitement, and our positivity towards the whole thing."

Recently, the band - who have been together for 10 years - got together to talk about their future and decided to break up after completing a five-date tour this month.

"In order to push through this next stage we were going to have to be super-committed and motivated and we didn't know if we were going to have the drive to actually push through the next few barriers," says Beets.

When TimeOut contacted Klein, the president of Hydrogen, in New York, we were told he was unavailable and were asked to email him.

His response was this: "I was very excited for the potential of the band and taking them to the next level. [But] the music must be there and must be tight to sell. We might have 400 million people in the USA, try to sell them a shitty [album] and see how far you get."

Klein used Steriogram as an example, saying despite the backing of the Apple iPod campaign and a Michele Gondry video they have not broken through in the US.

Hydrogen Records claims to have launched the careers of bands such as Pearl Jam, Korn, Oasis, Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill.

On its website, the artists' page - which features only three artists - has a segment on Wash which says: "Hydrogen sign its flagship artist on June 27, 2002."

Beets: "They [record companies] know the right words to say and they know how to sugar-coat things and really get you excited. While it's not always lies, it's quite often exaggerated.

"They were just pushing all of our buttons, like going to the MTV Awards, playing the Viper Room and CBGBs, and we were getting more and more excited and thinking, 'This is it'.

"I guess we were a little bit star-struck and let our hopes go right through the ceiling. I guess what we'd say to other bands is that the signing isn't everything."

The band's biggest disappointment concerns the constant promises over the past two years about the release of the album, which never happened.

"In most cases it was out of our control because it was all contractual. We promised so much but we feel that we didn't deliver - we've struggled with that."

After talks with Hydrogen the band got permission to release ninefivezerofive last month in New Zealand on local label Cruel Records.