From the press release: Ugly Stick’s Absinthe returns in 2025 with a long overdue vinyl reissue, more than thirty years after its first appearance on CD in 1993. Formed in Delaware, Ohio in 1989, the four-piece carved out a sound that was equal parts Los Angeles punk and Midwestern heartland rock, drawing on the grit of X and the melodic punch of Tom Petty to create what critics would later hail as “genre-crossing” and “seminal.” 

You recently reissued your 1993 album Absinthe on vinyl. What was behind that decision?

The album Absinthe was a turning point for the band. For me it represents a period where we were spending a lot more time together rehearsing, writing and recording and putting a little more time and attention into the songs. As a result I think a sort of artistic voice emerged on that record. It’s still scrappy as hell and idiosyncratic but it represents a kind of quickening. Hovercraft Records in Portland, OR was game to do the reissue on LP which is super satisfying. 

Has it been available on streaming services up until now?

It sort of has. The original songs on Absinthe had been available sometimes and in some places but the way the original (CD) timed out meant the reissue had to be a double album. That meant there was room for a handful of additional cool, strange, funny extemporaneous songs to fit on the LP.  So this “deluxe” version is available on all streaming services now.

How does the album sound to your ears all these years later?

It sounds much better now because we asked Carl Saff to handle all the remastering! He brought a lot of life to it and of course the vinyl experience is always a little better to me.

How and where was the album recorded?

The band lived in a house in Ohio and we built a makeshift recording studio in the basement. We had decent gear (a fostex 8 track) and all the time in the world so we got to muck about and drink beer and try to crack each other up. It was a great scene. We had lots of parties, we had lots of people over and we just kept working on these songs and on these recordings until we had what we wanted. Our friend and producer/engineer Billy Heingartner did most of the recordings. At one point David Holm (vocals) decided he wanted a choir on one of the songs, Paved. There is a college in the town where we all grew up so Dave called them and asked if they had a choir and they said, essentially, yeah, come on over so we did and brought the 8 track and Dave taught the choir all the vocal parts he’d worked out for them. It was pretty wild. Dave with that little baton.

Does listening to the album bring back any memories from that period?

 Yes! When the reissue was being remastered we would get versions to listen to and that happened to be while we were all together in Ohio in rehearsals for a show. So we had the great pleasure of sitting around the living room, all four of us, listening to the album sounding better than ever and yes, I can tell you  we were all bringing up memories and telling stories that night.

Ugly Stick is from Delaware, Ohio. How did that setting influence your sound?

The town and the sound of the band are inseparable. Delaware, OH was a proper small town when we all grew up there together. It was pretty idyllic. There was one movie theater, one high school, one record store, and one guitar store. We all got into music around the same time and so we were all learning how to play and how to play together and that creates a very cool connection. The town had a number of elements: agricultural, light industrial, civic and academic and there could be tensions between these groups. But, importantly, we all grew up hearing the same stories and tall tales and watching the same strange decay of post industrialization in front of a sombre rural background. Our music is of and from that. It’s twangy and rawkus but it’s also expressive. It’s rock music but it has this Americana thing baked in. We never really aimed for that, it’s just what happens when we get together to play.

Is the band still together? 

It is. My joke is that Ugly Stick is a band that makes a new record about every 15 years and so far we’re right on schedule. 

What’s everyone up to these days?

 I’ve been living in NYC for about 30 years and the rest of the fellows are in central Ohio. They have gravitated to the city (Columbus) from our beloved Delaware but the ties are still deep.  We’ve each had a number of different bands over the years but our friendship and our eagerness to play together makes it easy to click right back into our music whenever we can.