Good Morning!
Today we’re listening to “Every Word Means No” by Let’s Active
The line of producers that also perform in bands is long; Butch Vig & Garbage, Steve Albini & Big Black, and Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, to name just a few. On that same list is Mitch Easter. Easter has spent decades helping other artists get their sounds out into the world as a producer. He was behind the boards for The Connells’ Boylan Heights, Suzanne Vega’s Solitude Standing, Marshall Crenshaw’s Downtown, and many more.
From his Drive-In studio (so named because it literally was his parent’s two-car garage) also came such classics as REM’s Murmur, Chronic Town, and Reckoning. Arguably the band’s best run.
Easter and REM connected through mutual connection Peter Holsapple of The dBs.
[The studio] was tiny. The entire space was probably about 225 square feet. It was a two-car garage that had been divided up before my parents got the place. The previous owners split it up and turned it into a one-car garage, and then the other half they made into a children’s bedroom and this sort of utility room. The car area was where the band stood together, the children’s bedroom was the control room, and I think the bass and guitar amps were isolated in the little utility area next to the control room.
~Mitch Easter
As R.E.M.’s stature increased, so too did Easter’s. It only makes sense, right? His track record of exporting sounds from the Southeast US to college radio stations nationwide was indisputable. Why not do the same thing on the other side of the recording booth?
Let’s Active was originally formed with Easter and Faye Hunter on bass. Drummer Sara Romweber—just 17 at the time— joined soon after. The Afoot EP was released in 1983 (and again in 1989 after being combined with the Cypress LP). Along with Afoot, the band released 3 LPs before splitting up in 1990.
“We didn’t have hits in the conventional kind of way at all, but that song got to be well known. It was played on college radio and stuff like that.”
“Every Word Means No” became the band’s biggest song, and while it didn’t exactly scream up the charts, it became fairly well-known and was even covered by Smash Mouth in the late 90s. That may have been the final step on the band’s path from indie darlings to cult heroes to the subject of a tribute album.