Several years before a band out of Provo, Utah, called Neon Trees burst onto the scene with the pop-rock song “Animal” and an up-and-coming group named Imagine Dragons had an EP release party at Provo’s Velour, a few guys in the neighboring city of Orem were recording demos in a closet.
Influenced by the grungy sound of Nirvana, their music was heavy and messy. It featured screamo-tinged melodies that explored with raw emotion themes like the cycle of addiction, feeling stuck and the desire to branch out and see the world.
The young musicians, who would eventually call themselves The Used, all had their sights on making it big.
“We all wanted to be on tour,” The Used lead singer Bert McCracken recently told the Deseret News. “That was like our life goal, just to be out on the road, to play Warped Tour, to play with anyone. Our driving force was just to be able to do what we do.”
But to do that, they had to start small.
And according to McCracken and Used bassist Jeph Howard, venues in Utah County weren’t ready for what they had to offer at the start of the millennium.
Following The Used’s first show, a 2001 gig at Johnny B’s Comedy Club in Provo, the band was “immediately asked to never come back again,” McCracken recalled.
“It was too rowdy,” Howard added. “We had people jumping off the balconies. … And I think somebody got his front teeth knocked out, too.”
The band played just a handful of shows in Utah before they were signed by Reprise Records. Each place they played was one and done.
“They just weren’t ready for heavy music anywhere in Utah County,” McCracken said. “It was still kind of frowned upon, and we were definitely ostracized for our style of music.”
They just weren’t ready for heavy music anywhere in Utah County. It was still kind of frowned upon, and we were definitely ostracized for our style of music.
But even in those early days, amid the string of rejections from venues, the band saw fans begin to emerge, welcoming their sound.
“I think it was something brand new and something that had never been heard before, and people were excited,” McCracken said.
Now, as part of a 25th anniversary tour, The Used is returning to its Utah roots to do something that would’ve seemed impossible in those earliest days: play the same venue three times.
The band will perform Saturday, Monday and Tuesday at Salt Lake’s Union Event Center, each night playing through one of their first three albums.
Ahead of the shows, McCracken and Howard reflected on The Used’s rapid rise to fame — and how, even after more than two decades, Utah still holds a special place in their hearts.
As McCracken and Howard tell it, there wasn’t much of a music scene in Utah County back in 2000 — or at least one that was well-defined.
Any band that was a band would play together, sharing the stage to support each other. On any given night, a single show could have everything from ska to metal to pop punk.
“We were just all holding it together,” Howard said. “We weren’t really worried about having a genre. It was just, if you’re trying to hold on and play music, then we’ll work it out.”
With that kind of fluidity, Howard and McCracken — who were each in their own bands — were already aware of each other before The Used formed.
Howard was staying in a spare room at his mom’s apartment in Orem when The Used started composing music in a closet-turned-studio. In need of a vocalist, McCracken came to mind.
For the then-18-year-old singer, the opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time.
“I was at a pretty low point in my life, kind of sleeping around on friends’ couches and whatnot,” McCracken said, recalling how the band members clicked and they were able to quickly write the song “Maybe Memories.” “It’s kind of all uphill from there.”
The band later rented a house in Orem and turned yet another closet into a vocal booth where they could record a bunch of demos. During one recording session, as McCracken and Howard recalled with a surprising amount of fondness, a bat fluttered out and flew all over the house before Howard caught it in a Tupperware container and released it.
While venues close to home were skeptical of their sound, the band’s demos caught the attention of producer John Feldmann, the lead singer/guitarist of the ska band Goldfinger out in Los Angeles.
Roughly a year after forming, with only a handful of live shows to its name, The Used had signed to a label.
And they were ready for it.
The Used had support from fans even in their earliest shows, but the musicians felt a major shift in momentum — a kind of lightning bolt moment that assured them the band would make it — when they played in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Warped Tour.
The band’s self-titled debut album had only been out for about a month. But to their delight, when the power went out on the small Volcom stage at Utah State Fairpark, fans in the crowd kept on singing their breakout hit “Taste of Ink.”
“I think right then I was like, ‘Wow, we really have something,’” McCracken said.
Although the music video for “The Taste of Ink” was filmed in Los Angeles, references to Utah are peppered throughout it — one woman wears a BYU shirt and a sign on a convenience store in the video reads “UtahCo, Utah’s finest snack.”
“We’ve never shied away from where we came from,” McCracken said. “It’s always been a bit of a point of pride for the band.”
We’ve never shied away from where we came from. It’s always been a bit of a point of pride for the band.
The Used will perform “Taste of Ink”— and all of the songs on the self-titled album — Saturday night.
For McCracken and Howard, that debut record brings them back to those early days of trying to rise out of Utah County and make it as a band, the urge to get out and experience the world.
The band will play through its follow-up album, “In Love and Death,” Monday night. The 2004 offering came after they’d been touring for a bit, and had a little more control in and understanding of the music industry. The album was also heavily influenced by tragedy that hit close to home for McCracken.
The third album, McCracken and Howard only sort of joke, is how they can tell who their “hardcore fans” are.
“We kind of get a feel for who is in love with the first two records, and then we see who the hardcore fans are — they come out and sing ‘Lies for the Liars,’” McCracken said. “True hardcore fans are coming out and singing every word.”
“Lies for the Liars” marked somewhat of a stylistic departure from the band’s original sound — ”We wanted to make something very theatrical and almost Tim Burton-esque,” McCracken said.
“Throughout the years, the band has kind of taken on a new face, but at the same time, remained true to our origins,” the singer continued. “Twenty-five years later, we’re all completely different people, but I think in the writing sessions, we’re the same people. We like to open up about our problems and really capture something that makes sense for the time … which is not a lot different from when we wrote the self-titled.”
I think music and art itself has to evolve, and if it doesn’t, it’s kind of lying. If you’re not progressing and changing — even in a negative way — you’re sort of lying to yourself and lying to people.
“I think music and art itself has to evolve, and if it doesn’t, it’s kind of lying,” Howard added. “If you’re not progressing and changing — even in a negative way — you’re sort of lying to yourself and lying to people.”
It’s been a little over a month since The Used kicked off the 25th anniversary tour.
While a three-night stint in each city may seem taxing, it has actually been somewhat of a welcome change for the band since the runtime of an album is roughly 20-30 minutes shorter than their regular set — something McCracken said he has been appreciating at his age.
McCracken and Howard have loved the fan response to the tour, including learning from fans and meet and greets about why a certain album resonates more than another.
“Each night is very different,” Howard said.
Playing through these albums in Utah, the home of their very first fans, gives The Used the chance to reflect on their humble start while also celebrating how far they’ve come over 25 years.
“Our fans are some of the most loyal in the world, and they’ve stuck by us since the beginning, and they’re the reason why our dreams have come true,” McCracken said. “So we’re just so humbled and so grateful for their love and support.”
The Used on their humble start in Utah — and growth over the past 25 years – Deseret News
