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The Badlees

The Badlees are a Roots rock band from central Pennsylvania formed in 1990. They released several independent albums and steadily gained popularity, achieving national success on the strength of their 1995 album River Songs. After recording a follow-up album for their national label, Polydor, they got caught up in the aftermath of the company’s sale to Seagram’s corporation in 1998, which delayed the release of the album and eventually led to the Badlees return to being an independent band. They have continued to perform and produce albums independently, with their latest album, 2009’s Love Is Rain, being universally acclaimed for its top-notch songwriting and production quality. The Badlees and its individual members have forged a tremendous legacy in the countless artists they’ve inspired, mentored, advised, produced for, and performed with throughout the burgeoning Pennsylvania music scene.

History

Beginnings (1981-1989)

Three students from Mansfield University in north-central Pennsylvania met while attending the school’s music department in the early 1980s. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Feltenberger was Vocal Performance major, drummer Ron Simasek was a Music Education major, while saxophonist and future Badlees manager Terry Selders was a Music Merchandising major. While at Mansfield, the three played in various pickup bands with names such as The Leaky Sneakers and Secret Service.

After graduation, the three initially went their separate ways. Selders went to New York City where he managed a recording studio. Simasek went to Florida at first but then later joined Selders in New York where he became drummer for the band Kaos. Feltenberger entered the teaching profession and reunited with a band he formed in high school with his brother Steve Feltenberger on bass and guitarist Clint Barrick.

In 1988, Jeff Feltenberger contacted Terry Selders about making a professional recording with his band. Selders was in the process of forming an independent record label with producer Bill Grabowski and thought Feltenberger’s project would be a good fit for their first project. He convinced Simasek to join in as drummer and the new band, known as Bad Lee White went into Grabowski’s studio to record the initial album for the new A Street Records. The studio was called Susquehanna Sound and was located in Northumberland, PA. There, the band worked with the studio’s chief engineer, Bret Alexander.

Alexander was a high school football standout who went on to play defensive end for three seasons at Bucknell University. A guitarist in the band Masque, back in his home town of Canton, PA, Alexander always had a deep interest in music performing and later production. He took a credited internship at Susquehanna Sound while a student at Bucknell and eventually gained employment at the studio after graduation. While working on the Bad Lee White album, Alexander gained a respect for the music, even adding some guitar overdubs, and the band was so impressed with his talents that they ask him to join as a permanent member of the band.

What Goes Around by Bad Lee White was released on A Street Records in November 1988. It contained four originals, three written by Jeff Feltenberger, and was critically acclaimed and showed promising sales initially. However, internal conflicts at A Street prevented a second pressing of the album and its popularity soon waned.

Formation and early years (1990-1993)

After the release of their debut album, Bad Lee White entered a period of realignment and adjustment. Guitarist Clint Barrick left the group and was later followed by bassist Steve Feltenberger, who enlisted in the Marines. Susquehanna Sound became a hub for the remaining members as Bret Alexander continued on as chief engineer with Jeff Feltenberger and Ron Simasek frequently joining him to work on sessions or rehearse new material.

One day, a local band named Anthem from nearby Susquehanna University came in to record at the studio. The band had a dynamic 21-year-old singer named Pete Palladino and the guys hit it off with Pete and eventually approached him with an offer to join Bad Lee White as their front man, which he accepted. Soon after, the newly revised band officially changed their name to what fans had began commonly calling them at shows, The Badlees.

Another shift within the band was the emergence of Bret Alexander as chief songwriter and musical director - scheduling rehearsals, setting performance agendas, and eventually producing and/or engineering all of their albums. Alexander found an ideal songwriting counterpart in Mike Naydock, a disc jockey from Hazleton, PA., as Alexander’s expertise was in creating chord structures, melodies, and catchy song hooks, while Naydock was talented at the intricacies of lyric writing. Starting with the first Badlees EP, It Ain’t For You in 1990, the role of Alexander as the prime mover behind the band's sound would persist throughout the band's career and the songwriting partnership of Alexander/Naydock would produce some of their most famous songs.

New singer Pete Palladino had an immediate and dramatic impact on the live performances. His antics included jumping on tables and swinging from chandeliers or stage lighting, and the crowds reacted more and more positively. Palladino also helped the Badlees draw a large number of young women, which in turn attracted an even larger number of young men, so the crowd sizes swelled. These crowd sizes were instrumental to the early success of the Badlees since they were dedicated to performing mostly original material, which was a tough sell to many club owners in rural Pennsylvania at the time, when cover bands playing top 40 hits were the only consistent money makers. But with the Badlees ever growing crowds, they could not be denied an exception to many of these policies and it wasn’t long before they were regularly playing their unique act out four or five nights per week.

On October 10, 1990, the Badlees released the EP It Ain’t For You, which was Bret Alexander’s debut as producer and contained four, well-crafted, catchy, and energetic songs, each of which could stand alone well as a bar room anthem. It was released on Terry Selders’ newly-formed independent label, Rite-Off Records and it received positive press, such as Billboard Magazine’s famed Critics' Choice award. The Album Network, a weekly, well-respected music industry trade paper, invited the Badlees, as an unsigned band, to participate in their CD series called Tune Up. On the strength of the EP, the Badlees landed a gig opening for the band FireHouse, then at the peak of their brief national fame at the Metron in Harrisburg, PA.

Terry Selders returned to central Pennsylvania to be manager of the Badlees full time and, in 1991, Paul Smith joined as the band’s permanent bass player. Armed with a dynamic young singer, an ever-expanding fan base, a new sound forged by talented songwriters, and a successful debut recording, The Badlees set up headquarters in Selinsgrove, PA and were poised to move mountains on the rock scene. Despite their early success, the band remained hard-working, disciplined, and thrifty, reinvesting the proceeds from their numerous live shows into the production of a full-length album.

The result was Diamonds in the Coal, a well-crafted, entertaining, and thoughtful album with fine, exquisite details. It contained songs that, while still very pop-sensible and accessible, explored deeper subject matter and richer musical structure. This was best illustrated with the album’s closer, also named “Diamonds in the Coal”, which brings the listener into the dark, forgotten patch towns of Pennsylvania's Anthracite Region. Released in January 1992, the album contained much décor such as philosophical quotes accompanying each song’s lyrics and a cover that uses a classic photo from a local historical society.

With the release of their first full-length album, the Badlees popularity and stature continued to grow. They were invited to perform at the famous South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX and soon landed a corporate sponsorship with Budweiser, who liked the fact that they played out virtually non-stop. They opened up new avenues of revenue through the merchandising of tee shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and boxer shorts and produced special cassette singles with remixed versions of their songs to sell at shows. But the fact that the band remained unsigned to a major label through 1992 was quite a disappointment to the members some of whom still maintained "day jobs" and were enthusiastic that Diamonds would push the band over the top and garner some interest from the larger labels.

By 1993, as the Badlees prepared to work on their second full-length album, they decided to take quite a different approach, hiring Jack Pyers, formally of the band Dirty Looks as producer. Pyers approached the Badlees, promising a sound that more accurately reflects the energy of their live shows. The resulting effort was called The Unfortunate Result of Spare Time, a title that the Badlees shrugged off as ironic at the time, but have since come to admit to its more literal meaning. It's not that the music is terrible, in fact there’s some quite good and interesting material on the album, but the "result" was not quite what the band had hoped for and the album was also a costly enterprise, due to the fact that that they took off much of the summer of ’93 to produce it, the band paid Pyers for his services, and the album was mixed at a top-notch studio, Dajhelon Recording, in Rochester, NY.

National success (1994-1996)

In 1994, Bud Light, the band's primary sponsor, offered the band the opportunity to play a series of dates in a nation that few western artists had ever had the opportunity to perform in – China. The Qingdao International Beer Festival, an annual event in the Chinese city of the same name, was held from August 14th through the 18th in 1994. The Badlees were the only western entertainment performing that year, playing about ten shows over the course of those five days.

Soon after the band returned home, they headed back to the studio to start on their third full-length album. They planned on calling this next one simply “The Badlees”, as a symbol of their commitment to hit the "reset" button and return to their roots musically, but soon settled on the title River Songs. The album contained many well-crafted, straight-forward folk-rock tinged pop songs including the national hits "Fear of Falling", "Angeline Is Coming Home", and "Gwendolyn", as well as a few “statement” songs, such as the opening, down-home instrumental, “Grill the Sucker” and the climatic epic "Song for a River".

Released independently in February 1995, River Songs sold over 10,000 copies in its first few months and gained such momentum that it could not be ignored by the major labels. By early summer, several labels were courting the Badlees and in July they were flown to Los Angeles to by A&M Records, who was interested in signing the band to their subsiderary label, Polydor/Atlas. The band signed a deal for two albums, a future album and River Songs, which was accepted by the company "as is", with no further production required for the national release. The fact that an independently produced album, recorded outside the major studio system, would be released by a national label in its original form is was an absolutely incredible feat for the time.

The Badlees would spend the next year and a half constantly playing, usually as a supporting act for a national headliner. Their first really big show was opening up for Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page & Robert Plant in front of an audience of about 17,000 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, NY on Thursday, October 19, 1995. Later they would join tours for Bob Segar, Greg Allman, The Gin Blossoms, and Edwin McCain, among others and perform throughout North America.

The band also produced a couple of professional music videos, one for “Fear of Falling”, shot in and around Harrisburg, PA, and one for "Angeline Is Coming Home", directed by Anthony Edwards, an actor then staring on the television drama E.R. Edward's co-star on the show, Emmy award-winning actress Juliana Margulies, was cast to play the "Angeline" character in the video, which was shot at Charlie Chaplin Studios in Hollywood in March 1996. Although the cost of the “Angeline” video was about five times that of the “Fear of Falling” video, the Badlees were much less satisfied with the Edwards-directed effort.

Corporate limbo (1997-1999)

By the end of 1996, the band took a well deserved break from touring and hoped to turn their attention to writing and recording their next album. This second national release on Polydor was originally slated for late 1997 but, at the request of the parent label A&M, which had many of its major artists releasing albums for the Christmas season that year, the release date for the next Badlees album was moved back to February 1998.

This break from touring was an opportune time for the band members to build some domestic normalcy. Some started families around this time, and several used their moderate new wealth to purchase their first home. Bret Alexander bought a rural home outside of Wapwallopen, PA, where he slowly but surely started to gather equipment and gear to build a studio in his basement.

In Autumn of 1997 when the band entered the Bearsville Recording Studio to record material for the album that would be titled Up There, Down Here. The state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar studio was in a rustic location in the [[Catskill Mountains[[, just outside the artist community of Woodstock, NY. It was a unique experience in the long history of Badlees recording and producing, whic acted as a tremendous education for Paul Smith and Bret Alexander, whose long passions for studio engineering were reawakened, and they used Alexander’s home studio for final overdubs and mixing. However, once again, the date of release for Up There, Down Here was pushed back, this time from February to June, 1998.

Then, in May 1998, Polygram, the parent company of A&M and Polydor/Atlas, was sold to Seagram’s, a Canadian beverage company, for about $10.4 billion. Seagram’s, which already had a large stake in entertainment by owning MCA Records and Universal Studios, now also owned the vast array of labels that fell under the Polygram umbrella they decided to consolidate all of these vast operations into one new central entertainment company called The Universal Music Group (UMG). On the corporate end, this meant many layoffs and firings of executives and A&R representatives. As for the artists, UMG decided to focus all of their efforts on the top tier, best selling, "superstars", while summarily dismissing the artists whose sales were lagging. There was a third "middle" category for those artists that have had respectable sales but have not yet reached that "superstar" status. Unfortunately, the Badlees found themselves in this middle category.

There would be yet another delay in the release of the now finished Up There, Down Here album, this time from Fall 1998 to "date uncertain" and there were no marketing or tour support plans coming from Universal for the foreseeable future. But the band was still under contract and therefore restricted in the actions that they could take to further their career.

The Badlees quickly produced and released an EP of “unplugged” songs called The Day’s Parade in July 1998. But this just tended to confuse many loyal Badlees fans and critics, who were anticipating a full-length, major label release from the band about the same time.

As the corporate limbo persisted into 1999, the band became more and more convinced that they wanted out of their major label contract. They came up with a radical idea to simply make their own fully-produced, full-length album independently and without consent from the label. Terry Selders felt that this rash move by the band could not possibly be ignored by the folks at the new Universal Music Group, and was bound to cause some movement one way or another. The band members realized that this action would probably mean the death of Up There, Down Here, as Universal owned the rights to that recording.

The new album, Amazing Grace, was recorded, mixed, mastered, and pressed in just two months at Bret Alexander's home studio. It features the most diverse array of songwriting and voices, as well as styles and moods, with four different Badlees singing lead vocals on songs written by five differnet writers, including Mike Naydock. For this reason, it has become known as the Badlee’s White Album. It was released on April 2, 1999, and that very day the band was dropped by Universal. It was understood at the time that the recordings for Up There, Down Here were now, in fact, casualties, but Selders persisted in finding a new label and within a month, the Badlees were signed to a new contract with a label called Ark 21, owned by Miles Copeland, who had previously been phenomenally successful with I.R.S. Records.

Up There, Down Here would finally be released to the public in August 1998 on the Ark 21 label. The only provision of the deal was that the Badlees would have to stop actively promoting their recently-released Amazing Grace album. For this reason, the most interesting album that the band had ever made would be largely overlooked the very year in which it was released.

With the album that the band had prepared for and worked on for nearly four years finally released on August 24, 1999, the Badlees were ready to go on the road nationally in support of the album, as they had for River Songs. But there was yet more disappointment to come. It turned out that their new label, Ark 21 was well on its way to bankruptcy, and they seemed neither willing nor able to provide the band the support they needed to promote this album via touring, merchandising, or licensing.

The Badlees left Ark 21 after a very short period and returned to their status as an independent band, a state where they had been nothing but productive, growing, and artistically successful in the past. But with these compounded situations and with the recent arrival of his newborn son, Terry Selders decided it was time to move on and he announced to the band that he would no longer be their manager as the new millennium got underway.

Branching out (2000-2001)

After proofing they had the equipment and know-how to produce a professional album independently, Bret Alexander and Paul Smith decided to open a studio for business, choosing a private location near Danville, PA owned by Rusty Foulke of the band Hybrid Ice. The studio had been called Magnetic North and, starting with their first EP in 1990, the Badlees used it to make pre-production demos prior to recording their albums in a professional studio. After taking the helm, Alexander and Smith decided to call their studio Saturation Acres. Over the course of the next decade, they would produce a multitude of Pennsylvania artists, including some that would become nationally successful, such as Breaking Benjamin and Darcie Miner. The studio offered up-and-coming musicians the opportunity to work with top rate producers and engineers in a laid-back rustic setting. Further, The Cellarbirds, a pick-up band that includes the Badlee trio of Alexander, Smith, and drummer Ron Simasek, were available as the official "house band" to offer top notch session performances for solo artists or those with less than a full band.

As for the band itself, those label debacles combined with the departure of Terry Selders at the start of 2000, resulted in some inner turmoil that very nearly ended the Badlees. But these were not rash men, so instead of announcing a big "break up", they simply chose to concentrate on their various side projects as creative outputs during 2000 and 2001.

Aside from running Saturation Acres, Alexander and Smith again began performing live with Simasek as the Cellarbirds and began planning a debut album for that band. Meanwhile, Palladino and Feltenberger were also working on their own separate solo projects while continuing to perform live together as the Pete & Jeff Duo. Simasek would also join them on occasion to become Pete, Jeff, & Ron, and on one such occasion, Pete brought in some professional equipment to record a live show by the trio in Williamsport, PA, resulting in the unique, live album, 50:45 Live, which would ultimately be the last album released on that Rite-Off label in 2000.

As 2001 got underway, the members of the Badlees were busy working on their separate "side" albums that would end up being released within six weeks of each other in the late spring of 2001. Echotown was a self-titled album by Jeff Feltenberger's pick-up band and had a definite country-rock sound. Pete Palladino released a solo album, Sweet Siren of the Reconnected, in June 2001 that included contributions from every member of the Badlees to various degrees. The Cellarbirds also released their debut album, Perfect Smile, which was critically acclaimed. Despite being separate from the Badlees, these projects did include some common traits. Each was recorded at Saturation Acres, either produced or co-produced by Alexander, and Simasek played drums on each. Another common trait was that they each were well received critically but did poorly as far as sales. It would not be long before the band members decided to regroup and once again tie their fortunes to the Badlees.

Renew and long hiatus (2002-2008)

The Badlees got back together and make music once again as a band for a charitable event, Concert for Karen IV, in 2002. They got together at Saturation Acres and recorded four songs for an EP to be released in conjunction with the live event and it went so well that they decided to continue on a make a full-length album. This decision was spearheaded by Chris Fetchko, a 27-year-old native of Hazleton, PA, who eventually replaced Terry Selders as the The Badlees' new manager.

The album, Renew, was released in June, 2002 and to support it, the band decided to try something new - a television special. They filmed a special show at the Grand Ballroom of the Manhattan Center in New York City in July, 2002, playing a healthy mix of new songs off their album with favorites of the past. The show was titled Renew and Rewind and aired on a local Pennsylvania television in late August. Despite this new initiative, and some healthy airplay of the title song, Renew followed much the same path as the various side projects a year earlier – critically acclaimed, but commercially weak. But the band took this all in stride.

Bret Alexander and Mike Naydock did many songwriting sessions in late 2002 through 2003, intending to have a new Badlees album in 2004, but this album failed to materialize due to a slew of other projects that Alexander, Fetchko, and Saturation Acres were involved in at the time. These included Lit Riffs, a soundtrack to a book of the same name by MTV, for which the Badlees recorded a cover of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May”, and Gentleman East, an Americana-flavored solo album by Bret Alexander, which was originally intended to be the soundtrack for a major motion picture produced by Fetchko called Everything's Jake.

In March of 2004, Jeff Feltenberger announced he was officially leaving the Badlees as he planned to pursue a career as a record producer/engineer as well as launch his new band Sweet Pea Felty, the first shift in personnel among the musicians since 1991. The remaining members of the band, along with Fetchko, officially formed an equal partnership in the label S.A.M. Records ("Saturation Acres Music"), and began to sign other talent to the label.

But over time, these Fetchko projects dried up and, within a year or so, Fetchko departed from the band as manager. Throughout the bulk of the rest of the decade, the Badlees would be on an extended hiatus.

Palladino moved to Philadelphia where he got into the restaurant business, eventually becoming general manager of the hotel and restaurant - Daddy O in Long Beach Island, NJ. Ron Simasek remained the primary session drummer at Saturation Acres and played drums in various settings. Alexander and Smith continued to operate Saturation Acres, recording and producing scores of musical acts and branching out into other areas such as licensing. In 2006, they recorded a cover of "Keep on the Sunny Side" with singer K8, which was used in commercials by Days Inn nationwide for years to come. But eventually Paul Smith accepted a position as an instructor at Susquehanna University and left Saturation Acres in 2007. Soon after, Alexander moved the studio to commercial location in Dupont, PA, sharing the building with his wife's newly-opened bakery.

Love Is Rain and band’s return (2009-2010)

Chris Gardner, the Badlees’ current manager set the wheels in motion for a Badlees reunion in late 2008. He enlisted the help of Ron Simasek and they persuaded the rest of the band members to work on the new album, for which Gardner acted as Executive Producer and offered financing for the album's production.

The Badlees quite possibly reached their pinnacle with the release of Love is Rain in October 2009, putting forth a masterful work of art. The album is a nice mix of traditional Badlee pop-oriented songs along with some unconventional, yet melodic songs that show the maturing of the band.

After its release, the Badlees played a series of live shows together for the first time in five years starting in November, 2009. These shows frequently included guest musicians like Aaron Fink, Nick Van Wyke, and Dustin Drevitch, along from with the four remaining members of the band – Alexander, Palladino, Simasek, and Smith.

Today, the Badlees perform sold-out shows throughout Pennsylvania on a limited schedule to accommodate the various other vocations of the band's members. Not wanting to have such a gap between albums as that between the last two, the Badlees plan on producing a new album in 2011.

Musical style and influences

The Badlees forged a distinctive sound through their formative years that fused rock and pop elements with a distinct Pennsylvania style they called “roots rock”. This sound was best presented on their breakthrough album River Songs, released in 1995. Some of the band’s later efforts, especially Amazing Grace and Love Is Rain, branched out into several different sub-genres, such as new wave, blues, folk, country, and Americana.

The band members themselves drew their influences from diverse sources. Founding member Jeff Feltenberger was formally trained as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, with a bend towards folk, country, and bluegrass. guitarist and chief songwriter Bret Alexander cites various influences ranging from John Lennon and the Beatles to Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Steve Earle. Drummer Ron Simasek is a huge fan of Frank Zappa and, along with bassist Paul Smith, the Canadian power trio Rush. Singer Pete Palladino drew his influences from a spectrum of rock and pop artists including contempories Counting Crows and Edwin McCain.

Band members

Current band members

Former band members

  • Jeff Feltenberger - guitars and multiple string instruments, vocals (Bad Lee White & Badlees, 1988-2004)
  • Ric Stehman – bass guitar (Badlees, 1990-1991)
  • Steve Feltenberger – bass, vocals (Bad Lee White, 1988-1990)
  • Clint Barrick – guitars, vocals (Bad Lee White, 1988-1989)

Discography

Badlees albums

Charting singles

Year Title Chart positions[1] Album
US Mainstream Rock US Adult Top 40 US Top 40 Mainstream Billboard Hot 100
1995 "Fear of Falling" 31 - - - River Songs
1996 "Angeline is Coming Home" 20 28 27 67

Albums by Badlees members

Other projects involving Badlee members

Year Project Type Badlee member / contribution
2004 Rest Out Album by Jared Campbell Bret Alexander, Guitars
Paul Smith, Bass
Ron Simasek, Drums
2005 Wishful Drinkin Album by Shawn Z Bret Alexander, Guitars
Paul Smith, Bass
Ron Simasek, Drums
2006 "Keep On the Sunny Side" Song by K8 Bret Alexander, Guitars
Paul Smith, Bass
Ron Simasek, Drums
Used for a national Days Inn commercial.
2008 St. Jude Avenue Album by Shawn Z Bret Alexander, Guitars
Paul Smith, Bass
Ron Simasek, Drums
2009 Love EP by Mycenea Worley Bret Alexander, Multi Instrumentss
Ron Simasek, Drums
2009 Imaginary Lines 33 Album by Imaginary Lines Bret Alexander, Guitars
Ron Simasek, Drums
2010 "Song for Diane" Song by P.J. Heckman Bret Alexander, Multi Instrumentss
Ron Simasek, Drums
For use on Dollars for Diane Benefit CD.
2010 See That My Grave is Kept Clean Album by Ed Randazzo Bret Alexander, Multi Instrumentss

Notes

  1. ^ Billboard Single, Allmusic.com

References

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