Archers of Loaf
| Archers of Loaf | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
| Genres | Indie rock, noise rock |
| Years active | 1991–1998, 2011–present |
| Labels | Alias |
| Website | http://archersofloaf.net/ |
| Members |
Eric Bachmann Matt Gentling Eric Johnson Mark Price |
Archers of Loaf is an American indie rock band originally formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1991. The group toured extensively and released four studio albums, one compilation, numerous singles and EPs, and a live album which was released after the band broke up in 1998. In 2011 the band began a reunion tour that coincided with the reissue of four of its albums by Merge Records.
Singer/guitarist Eric Bachmann, guitarist Eric Johnson, bassist Matt Gentling, and drummer Mark Price, all originally from Asheville, NC, formed Archers of Loaf in the early 1990s. Eric Bachmann was a saxophone major at Appalachian State University before dropping out because he "didn't want to be a high school band director."
Their initial release in 1992 was a 45" single, "Wrong" b/w "South Carolina" given away free with issue 1 of Stay Free! magazine. The band signed with Alias records and released their second single "Web in Front" which received moderate college radio airplay. It was also featured in a season five episode of Beavis and Butt-Head, where its quality was roundly mocked. They released their debut full-length album, Icky Mettle, in 1993. It was critically well received, with critic Robert Christgau awarding his second-highest rating of "A", and peaked at #18 on the CMJ New Music Monthly Top 150 Album charts, charting for 21 weeks. In the 2008 book The Pitchfork 500 named "Web in Front" one of the top 500 songs of recent decades.
In 1994, the Archers released the EP Vs the Greatest of All Time. However, the song "The Greatest of All Time" does not appear on this release but rather the second full-length album, Vee Vee, released in 1995. Vee Vee followed a similar template as their previous recordings and featured the track "Harnessed in Slums", which became popular on college radio. The album also garnered significant attention outside the independent music scene, culminating in the band being courted by Maverick Records, a division of Warner Music Group, which the band rejected. Bachmann later stated that he and the band did not really consider the offer. The band was still under contract with Alias, and changing labels would put them into considerable debt to Maverick. According to Bachmann, "We already signed a deal [with Alias] and it costs lots of money to get out of these things. If we would have had Maverick buy out our contract, we'd be however many thousands of dollars in debt to them. It's really complex that way and it really didn't make sense to do that." The band had another reason for rejecting the Maverick offer: They did not want to be associated with the other high-profile bands on Maverick. "The other bands [on Maverick] were that bad," said Price at the time. "There are other bands on major labels that are associated with a lot of shit but it's big enough that there are a least a few bands that you like. For us on Maverick, it'd be us and Candlebox and Alanis Morissette..."
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