It's refreshing to hear of rock 'n' roll dreams coming true. The
boys of CREASE have been working quite a while for the
disc you're listening to now. Hailing from Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, this hard rockin' foursome knows how it feels to pay
their dues. We've actually overpaid our dues," jokes
drummer Eric Dorigo. His brother and resident guitarist Fritz
adds, "It feels good that this is happening to friends that I
grew up with. The stuff we would talk about in high school, it
took so long, but now it's actually happening."
In 1994, Fritz and Eric along with vocalist Kelly Meister were
three fourths of Excessive. The hard rock outfit had been
plying their wares locally for years. However, when their
bassist quit to get married the remaining members decided
that it was do or die from this point. Greg Gershengorn was
brought on board to revitalize their ambitions and they
changed their name to CREASE. With new songwriting
blood in the mix, the foursome began to work on all new
material while gigging around the Fort Lauderdale area. Soon
thereafter they landed a deal with an indie label and released
Interference, which garnered them a Jammy Award
nomination from JAM magazine for "Best Independent
Release of the Year for the State of Florida." A year later
however, the deal went sour and the band was back at
square one. Despite the enormous setback, the collective
steeled their resolve and spent the following three years
recording over sixty new tunes and becoming a fixture in the
Sunshine State's club circuit.
In late 1997, CREASE set out to record an album. However,
they ran out of money five songs into the process, leaving
them with "Frustration," "Non-User," "Building Up," "Making
Progress," and a rocked out version of Tommy Tutone's
"Jenny (867-5309)." When the ...Six Pack Shy of Pretty EP
was released, it got an airing on a local music show on
South Florida's premier rock station 94.9 ZETA (WZTA).
When the program director Greg Steele heard the anthemic
drive of "Frustration," he loved it so much that he decided to
give CREASE a shot. "When I first heard 'Frustration' on the
radio, I was speechless," says Kelly. "I thought 'This must
be it'. This has to be it,' because we'd never had anything on
the radio before."
Frustration has a bittersweet history as Greg explains. "I
had a girlfriend who lost her mind and ended up joining a
cult. I was kinda pissed at myself for getting wrapped up in a
girl like that, I thought I was smarter than that. I loved her
and it bugged me that I couldn't see what was going on
She stole my money, my car, everything. So that week I just
sat in my house and started writing, so actually it was a
good thing." With the song climbing the local charts, 94.9
ZETA asked the band to open for Dishwalla in front of 8,000
people. The next day on the station's morning show, the
phones were jammed with calls about the band.
"Frustration" subsequently hit #1 and CREASE were added
to the ZETAFEST bill. Four slots away from headlining the
show, they proved that they had what it took to entertain a
crowd of 35,000 Floridians who wanted nothing more than to
rock out. With Zeta helping to raise their profile, CREASE
outsold Kid Rock and Metallica in the Miami market for the
following two weeks!
The next year the band hooked up with New York-based
manager, Jamie Schoenfeld, and spent the next year playing
a slew of showcases up and down the Eastern seaboard, as
well as opened for the Goo Goo Dolls, Cheap Trick,
Buckcherry, Our Lady Peace, and Sponge. The New Times
of Broward/Palm Beach voted CREASE "Best Local Rock
Band of 1999" as the labels came calling. In December of
1999 Crease signed with Roadrunner Records. So eager to
get the album out, the label urged the band to start recording
before the ink had even dried.
For over two months they laid down tracks at Elysian Fields
in Boca Raton and Audio Vision in Miami. Fritz jokes about
the experience; "It wasn't our first time in a studio, it was our
first time in a nice studio." Kelly adds, "It was exciting to be
in a real studio. I blew my voice the first night I was trying so
hard." In addition to tracking a slew of new tunes, all five
songs from ...Six Pack Shy of Pretty were remixed and
revamped for inclusion on what would become Vindication.
For the band, the title Vindication just seemed to succinctly
sum up their lives of the past fourteen years. Vindicated and
ready to rock, this is what CREASE has been waiting for
their whole lives.
