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Damone jumps ship from RCA to Island/Def Jam
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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The day that a band are let go from their record label is usually a somber one. But Damone, who had been negotiating their release from RCA since the fall, weren’t exactly shedding tears when they got the news earlier this month that RCA was finally dropping them. Softening the blow considerably was the fact that at the moment the Waltham-based bubblegum-punk group got word of their release from RCA (which issued the band’s debut, From the Attic, in 2003), they were on their way to New York City to showcase a batch of new songs for Island/Def Jam honcho LA Reid. Later that same day, at a midtown Manhattan rehearsal space, the band ran into former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, who gave Damone bassist Mike Vazquez an encouraging nod before their audition. They took this as a good omen — after all, they’d recorded an unreleased cover of the Cars’ "Just What I Needed" — and after the band ripped through five songs for an audience of Island A&R folk, Reid was overheard opining that one of Damone’s new songs, "On Your Speakers," is a sure-fire smash. A few weeks ago, Island/Def Jam made Damone an offer they couldn’t refuse, and the band found themselves signing to a new major label less than a month after being let go by RCA. The deal works out as a major coup for Damone, who, like many rock bands on RCA (including fellow Bostonians Cave In, also dropped recently), felt stranded when Clive Davis returned to head a restructured BMG (RCA’s parent company). The label has since focused its resources on promoting pop, especially its American Idol contestants. Ironically, the man Davis replaced at BMG was LA Reid, who had in turn replaced Davis at Arista several years before. Did the Reid/Davis rivalry play a role in Damone’s jumping ship? It’s impossible to say, but Damone have been quietly negotiating their release since September — RCA had responded tepidly to the band’s new material, but a copy of the Damone demo found its way to Reid at Def Jam, and he immediately expressed interest in signing the band if they were able to wriggle free from RCA. (Former Damone guitarist and main songwriter Dave Pino, who left the band acrimoniously in 2003, was not covered under Damone’s release from RCA: he remains under contract to that label in what amounts to a kind of legal purgatory.) Damone have more than an album’s worth of material already in the can, much of it displaying a debauched glam-metal direction only hinted at on their debut. Tom Lord-Alge, the heavyweight producer who re-mixed Damone’s home-recorded album (originally issued as This Summer when the band was still known as Noelle, after lead singer Noelle LeBlanc) and turned it into their RCA debut, is set to mix the new Damone tracks in March, with the group’s Island/Def Jam debut to follow later in the year. You can hear the band preview some of the new material at their next gig, February 11 at the Middle East in Cambridge; call (617) 864-EAST.
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