I "discovered" The Juleps while trolling the Internet for interesting sounds for my column, The MP3 Files. Immediately impressed by their seamless two-part harmony and strong song structure, I asked for more information from the band's leader, Gary Yerkins. I got a second surprise when I found out that Gary--along with two other members of The Juleps--was also in The Insiders, who recorded a superlative major-label debut, featuring the hit song "Ghost On The Beach." The Insiders have continued to perform and record, and The Juleps was created as a side project to let Gary write "some songs created for my voice in a duet with a female vocal." Both bands focus on melody and harmony and feature strong songwriting, mostly from Gary's pen.

There are a lot of bands banging the boards and not getting the push from the A-1 hype machine; that's just the nature of the industry. But that doesn't mean that they aren't really, really talented. Sometimes, like The Insiders, they get a taste of success but circumstances arise that turn everything upside down. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, they say...

If you have not had the pleasure of hearing Gary's music, I hope you rectify that at your earliest convenience. In the meantime, please allow me to give you an opportunity to dig a little deeper along with me. Gary's a busy guy, but we were able to hook up in early June...

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Cosmik: The first time I ever heard any of your stuff, I heard "Ghost On The Beach" by The Insiders, which is just a tremendous song.

Yerkins: Yes, it was... that was around 1987, August of 1987.

Cosmik: Where I lived at the time, which was upstate New York, that song got a ton of radio airplay. And when you dig past the surface at what appears at the time to be one-hit bands, sometimes you find a great story. And it's amazing that all this time later, I find your music again, but through a completely different portal. There's the same guy! But great songs are great songs.

Yerkins: Yeah, that one stuck to the wall, didn't it?

Cosmik: That one came pretty early for The Insiders, didn't it? Or had you been at this a long time beforehand? Didn't you get together around 1985?

Yerkins: Yes, 1985, but Johnny (Siegle) and I had been writing together at that point for about five years, off and on. And we were going to be in a band, but then we weren't, and stayed in different bands. But then in 1985 we decided that we'd try to put together a Mersey-pop type of band, a jangle band, but it ended up being more rocking than that.

Cosmik: Did that song get you signed? Or how did you get onto--

Yerkins: I would say so, yeah. There was a demo that that song was on that had "Ghost On The Beach," "Peace In Time," "Memory Row," and "Sad Songs," which were four of the best songs on that record. Like a lot of people do, you know, we hit a really good streak. We'd been shopping around to a lot of labels and that demo led off with "Ghost On The Beach," and we were signed shortly thereafter. (laughs) Funny how that happens sometimes.

Cosmik: Now, from where I was, that's all I heard from the band, so what happened after that? Obviously you went on from there for a while at least.

Yerkins: Well, I hope you don't mind me synopsizing this a little. At that time, we had offers from Warner Brothers, Capitol and Epic, and we finally wound up going with Epic basically because we liked the people. And then right around three months after "Ghost" came out, all of those people except one, including the Chief of A&R, left and went to other labels, which often happens in the record business. So we were left with an A&R Department that basically didn't give a fuck about us... and that was that. That was the beginning of three years of "Fuck you... No, fuck you!" type of thing (laughs).

Cosmik: Do you think that, at the time, the way music was changing had anything to do with it? I mean we're talking about 1990 when everyone was starting to jump into Seattle.

Yerkins: Actually this was a lot before Seattle. The rap on us was that everything at the time was hair band, metal or rap. And there was no place for a guitar-playing singer-songwriter band. So it was almost the opposite; I think in my consciousness Seattle didn't really make a big public impact until about 1992, maybe late 1991.

Cosmik: Late ninety-one, probably--

Yerkins: I mean in 1990, 1991 you're talking Poison, you're talking Warrant, you're talking... what's the band with that guy with the clock around his neck?

Cosmik: (laughs) Public Enemy... Flav--

Yerkins: All that stuff was really what was big, and people were saying that rock was dead, singer-songwriter rock anyway, and AOR radio was going down the tubes because of that, all that kind of shit. So AOR radio was our stronghold; we were Top Ten on AOR with "Ghost On The Beach." We had a lot of friends in radio. Well, sort of friends. Benevolent people.

Cosmik: Well, I don't know... when I think of The Insiders, I think hair bands and rap, don't you?

Yerkins: Yeah! (laughs) Well, we tried a few things! I couldn't get my flow together. (laughs).

Cosmik: Well, there were a lot of changes at the time. But you wound up putting out some stuff on Monsterdisc--I've heard a couple of them--and at that point in time, putting out your own stuff wasn't like a death sentence anyway. There were a lot of magazines starting up and looking for something new, and a lot of attention being paid to bands who did that type of thing.

Yerkins: Oh, it was liberty, it was wonderful to me. I mean we made a second record for Epic after two years of having every song we submitted to them turned down by the new A&R people. And we finally made a record we really liked, working with Joe Hardy--who worked with The Replacements on Pleased To Meet Me and Steve Earle's Copperhead Road, a couple of records we really admired. And we just had a great experience and made this really cool record, and of course they said something like "Well, we'll release it, but we'll just basically kick it out the door," or a line like that. We asked them if we could shop it somewhere else, and they finally said okay, but then they put a really high price tag on it. Because they didn't want us to have success with it if they couldn't, y'know? (laughs)

Cosmik: So, whatever happened to the second record?

Yerkins: Epic owns it. It was terrible, you know? We couldn't use the songs, our contract said we couldn't re-record the songs--we had two years worth of writing go into it and everything we submitted belonged to them. So we had to start from scratch.

Cosmik: Well, it's sitting on a shelf with a lot of other good records.

Yerkins: I actually called the head of Legal Affairs at Epic to plead with him for my livelihood; I spent like two and half years writing these tunes, at least give me my songs back. He just said flat out that they didn't want to let us... it would make them look bad if we used those songs and had success with them.

Cosmik: Just out of curiosity, what kind of price tag did they put on something that they didn't want to have anything to do with?

Yerkins: A hundred and fifty thousand for the master.

Cosmik: Oh, man! Unbelievable!

Yerkins: So nobody would buy it. It... it's just such a petty business in some ways, you know?

Cosmik: Well, when I said other records were sitting there too, you're not alone. Lots of other bands have gone through the same thing, it's ridiculous. But I think you nailed it on the head there--it's not the money.

Yerkins: There were labels who wanted to... that liked the record, a couple that wanted to do something. I remember Chrysalis was one, those guys were really hot to do it. Mike Bone was the head of the label then and they really wanted to do something. But he looked at the price tag and said, "Sorry guys, I can't do that." So they (Epic) knew what they were doing.

Cosmik: When you guys retreated from them, you did another record then, which had a lot of great stuff on it. That was--

Yerkins: That was Not For Sale. I think that's my favorite Insiders record, personally--I like the sound of it. I mean, we were coming from a relatively dark period, so the record has a dark side to it, but I think the band really rose to the occasion on that record.

Cosmik: How do you keep a band together through a scenario like that, where you kind of hit the wall so hard? Is there a tendency for people to want to just drift off into something else? I mean, like you said, it's a little dark, a little depressing. How do you keep everybody moving in the same direction?

Yerkins: (laughs) Well, we always had a lot of fun. We always had a really, really great fan base in Chicago who were very supportive, and the press was very supportive as well. Actually, a little too supportive... the press made us out to be the "great white hope" of Chicago. WXRT was a really big station there, and nationally, and they always played us a lot. We'd go out and play shows and have people going crazy, so... nothing wrong with that! The major label thing... once we got out of it, it was disappointing that we couldn't stay in the club, and sign with someone else. But it was very liberating. Hell, I don't know why I even wanted to go back (to another major), it was just one big pain in the ass.

Cosmik: That is a very powerful station. I remember they helped launch Material Issue right around the same time. And that's a great town anyway, you're so close to Minneapolis and Detroit and so many other musical pockets and great markets--

Yerkins: Yeah, this is the town where John Hiatt did better than anywhere else in the country at that time. Steve Earle, The BoDeans... and all those bands, that's all due to WXRT. Because XRT got behind them like they got behind us; they take a certain amount of pride in that.

Cosmik: So when you said that they may have pushed too hard, is it because those other acts had a label deal and you didn't, and it looked like a hometown thing?

Yerkins: Well, those other acts aren't from Chicago! People get kind of parochial about that, they want their acts and hometown bands to make it big. That's all fine and good, but it gets to be a little bit silly after a while. It wasn't why we were doing it (making music)... we weren't doing it to make Chicago proud. We were doing it for ourselves, really.

Cosmik: Now at the time mentioned that you were writing a lot of songs with John. Were you starting to get to the point where you wanted to write a lot more by yourself?

Yerkins: Yeah, I would say that. Certainly by the time of Fate In Action (1994). I think there are three songs on that one that are pure co-write, and then there were probably six or seven that we did totally individually, then others that were loosely collaborative. Somebody would just add a little punch-up or something. But I think that's perfectly natural for a songwriting team. After a while, you... you sort of retreat to your own corners a bit.

Cosmik: Do you think that led the way to you starting to get the idea for The Juleps?

Yerkins: Yeah, your relationship changes, it's almost like a boy/girl sort of thing. The dynamic of initially seeing each other, you have a lot of surprises in your pocket for each other. Then, after a point, you sort of learn all of each other's tricks, y'know? I mean, John... I think he's the best songwriter I've ever worked with. He's terrific. It's hard to make that directional change, and I really needed to. But it's hard to make that directional change with the same person you've been working with, since you've got a rut.

Cosmik: A lot of people collaborate in different ways. When you wrote with John, did you both collaborate on every aspect of each song, did one write words and the other music, how did it work?

Yerkins: It was totally collaborative. When we do have... we'd always write alone. Somebody would always pitch a song and the other would have a verse or chorus or something, and then bring it back. It would sort of organically evolve at those moments. That's not the only way we'd write together, we had other ways... whatever it took to get the song done. The best part about that is that as songwriters, we were never selfish about our ideas, ever. Nobody cared what percentage of the song they wrote. It was always a fifty-fifty thing money-wise, but it was fifty-fifty attitude-wise too. It was the best of all possible worlds, really.

Cosmik: Some great stuff on those indie albums. I'm thinking songs like "Say When" and... "Long Road To Ride"--you could almost see the direction, or the types of songs that you are writing right now with The Juleps.

Yerkins: Actually, interestingly enough, those were both pure John songs. I didn't really have anything to do with either of them.

Cosmik: Well, then I think you should give the guy some cash (laughs) because you nicked them!

Yerkins: When we weren't playing for a while, he was playing with a Chicago artist called Mike Jordan, interestingly enough, who was a real archivist, old rock and roll and country sort of guy. And John's always been a fan of The Stones and The Faces, and country music--he's been into that too. The reason we didn't wrote country together is because it just seemed silly for The Insiders to do country. It just wasn't... it just didn't fit in. We'd slip a couple in there of course; "Scarlet Ribbons" is pretty country, that's a co-write--

Cosmik: "Love Time." That's another I jotted down.

Yerkins: Yeah... yeah.

Cosmik: Well, when you say "The Faces," country isn't the first word that pops into my head.

Yerkins: Well, it sort of is, in that the Stones always had that kind of country... country...

Cosmik: There was a thick vein of that going through their stuff for sure, but...

Yerkins: The Stones more than The Faces, but then all those guitar riffs were just country riffs with the distortion turned up. Basically. It all just cross-pollinates, anyway.

Cosmik: Well, Chuck Berry is a St. Louis boy! There's half the Stones' catalogue right here. Amazing coincidence, but I was just listening to Flowers today. Great stuff--I love late sixties and early seventies Stones... there's great stuff in there.

Yerkins: Oh, yeah!

Cosmik: Some of your songs are pretty funny, too. I really think that some of the stuff on the Juleps' record is lyrically brilliant, but some of the other songs have great throw-away lines, like "Come Back To Me" has the one about leaving the toilet seat down, which just cracked me up when I heard it--

Yerkins: True story! (laughs)

Cosmik: I bet it is! Looking through all the stuff that you guys have done, the music is great, but the lyrics are very, very strong. I guess this is where I peel into The Juleps again. "Wild Beautiful Thing" is just... I can't even pick a favorite line out of that, I think it's a perfectly written song.

Yerkins: Well, thanks. It took three of us to do that one!

Cosmik: Yeah, I saw the extra effort!

Yerkins: Well, Johnny's really clever. I guess you could say that that was the transition point between The Insiders and The Juleps. I pitched that song to John after Fate In Action; it was one of the first songs I wrote with what became The Juleps in mind. And John did a lot of that song.

Cosmik: Now what happens with The Insiders because of The Juleps? Are you juggling between the two bands? Do The Insiders just get together to play the occasional gig because you're immersed in the Juleps' world? Or are these two full-time bands for you?

Yerkins: The Insiders is not a full-time active band at this point, but I refuse to rule that out. We've talked about doing at least an EP in the coming year. But The Juleps has been on a bit of a hiatus itself because I needed to find a replacement for (vocalist) Cathy (Richardson). And that put me into kind of a funk for a while, because of the prospect of actually replacing her, as good as she is. And then sort of re-initiating the great vibe that we have, which is pretty organic, has been daunting. So I sort of moped around for the better part of a year before I finally got off my ass and did it.

Cosmik: Now you just had the first gig with the new singer the other night, right?

Yerkins: Yeah, with Melissa Ziemer, she's great!

Cosmik: Where is she from?

Yerkins: She's from Southern Indiana via New York; she had a job with Revlon for a while. She's pretty young, twenty-six, fresh out of college with a high-powered job, but she decided she needed to be a performer. So now she's living in Wicker Park, the artist community here, and living the life.

Cosmik: I imagine that it must have been tough for you. I had never heard Cathy before (the Juleps) and I know she had her own band, saw all the press on her. But the two of you just sounded phenomenal together, very perfect together.

Yerkins: Yeah, I thought we were both... more than qualified for the job! (laughs)

Cosmik: How did you hook up initially?

Yerkins: Local bars--we were friends with her guitar player, who's in The Juleps now--just knowing people in town. One of the concepts for The Juleps was that we ran a lot of players through when Jay (O'Rourke) and I started the band. We had a few bass players through, a couple of drummers, a couple of singers... it was more like the Tuesday Night Music Club sort of concept, only for real; we were playing with all our friends. And then it started to focus and codify into a band. Coagulate, I guess, is the right term for what happened. And Cathy came along and we asked her--I didn't think she'd want to do it because she had her own band--and for about the first six months, she was really into it. And then... she really kind of disappointed me (laughs) I hate to say!

Cosmik: Is she back with her own band now?

Yerkins: Well, she always was. We call The Juleps "the side project" because everybody in it is in somebody else's band.

Cosmik: Actually one of The Juleps is in her band, right?

Yerkins: Well, Ed Breckenfeld was The Insiders' drummer, so after she was in The Juleps she asked him to join her band too because he's the best drummer in town. So it was all very incestuous and sort of loose, and that's a good thing--I like that, actually. Even currently, Grant (Tye) who used to play with Cathy now plays with this artist Robbie Fulks--

Cosmik: Oh, Robbie Fulks! He's great.

Yerkins: Yeah, he wrote one of the songs on the first record with me, a little Chicago scene thing.

Cosmik: That's "Marie's Riptide," right?

Yerkins: Yeah. Robbie's a master songwriter. He's one of my heroes.

Cosmik: Who are some of the other people that you admire? You mentioned The Replacements before, now Fulks...

Yerkins: You mean like in "the day"? Or in general?

Cosmik: In general. Like John Hiatt, who you mentioned, has always been one of my favorites.

Yerkins: Hiatt's a favorite of all of us. And some older stuff, I dunno... World Party. I still always listen to Ry Cooder stuff, get myself in the mood... um... I'm really bad at thinking of what records I'm listening to, to tell you the truth.

Cosmik: That's okay, me too! Always forget something.

Yerkins: I mean I go through periods where I don't listen to anything and then periods where I listen to a lot. Then there's the old rap that everybody says like "The Beatles and The Stones."

Cosmik: Well, even though you're both in Chicago, it's always great to hear someone mention Robbie Fulks, for example.

Yerkins: Well, Robbie would be able to tell you exactly who he's listening to; he's such an archivist. He strains traditional country through his whacked point of view, and it comes out sounding like he invented it.

Cosmik: I love the tune he cut with The Skeletons backing him up, "That Bangle Girl." It's one of the best things I've heard all year.

Yerkins: Yeah, that's a cool song.

Cosmik: You mentioned about how The Insiders might get together for an EP this year. How did The Juleps fare by putting their record out on the Internet? What plans do you have there?

Yerkins: Well, I want to do it all at this point. I want to make another Juleps CD like yesterday, and have it done by the end of the year. And we're going to play some shows and be a band; everyone's excited about getting back together. It's a very amiable and happy-to-see-you group of people. We have a lot of fun playing. Everybody just adores Melissa. She's not only very talented, she's also the ball of positive energy that we really needed to sort of get us back together.

Cosmik: What about the MP3 concept for you, as opposed to brick-and-mortar marketing? Has it worked out, had any negligible effect? I mean, that's how I found you, just trolling around looking for good music, and there you were.

Yerkins: Well, I started that last year in June, and at the time, the record was just kind of sitting there in my drawer, so I thought it would be cool to put it up there and see what happened. I thought that more people should hear this music, so I put it up there for free, I didn't care. And I got a real kick out of watching it take off. I saw that a lot of people really liked it, and that was reaffirming for me. I must say that I don't know what that really means, being that it's free, but I do know that there are people willing to spend ten or fifteen minutes downloading our music, so there's a certain amount of commitment there, and the response is great.

Cosmik: There's the big ethical struggle going on now with Napster, and people with far more money than you or I are screaming about getting screwed out of royalties, but it does seem to give the global audience a chance to latch onto something fairly easily. And if you are putting it up there for free and that's your choice, what better marketing plan could you make than that?

Yerkins: Yeah! Well, we probably have another fifteen or twenty thousand fans--well, people who like The Juleps music, I don't know if you call them fans--that we didn't have before.

Cosmik: Did you find that there was a big crossover because of your history as The Insiders?

Yerkins: Insiders fans, as a rule, don't love The Juleps. Fans are kind of funny that way. They get stuck on what you're doing, but that's okay though. I admire them for liking The Insiders in the first place, to tell you the truth! But we thought that when we started we'd be melding two fan bases together, because Cathy has a reasonable fan base as did The Insiders. But people who like rock and roll don't necessarily know they would like country music unless they listened to it and it was good.

Cosmik: So now two bands have been up and down, but you sound like you have both where you want them to be. The Insiders can work when they want to, and The Juleps are revitalized.

Yerkins: Well, The Juleps was always low agenda, like "Let's make some music and have fun." I'd like to retain that spirit, but I'd also like to make some phone calls. I haven't really shopped this to anyone, and we've only played one thing you could call a showcase, in Nashville. One holdup, frankly, was that pushing this would have always been a tug-of-war for Cathy, and I would feel guilty pushing that. But working with somebody with ambition might rub off on me. I'd like to open up the songwriting to others like Grant and Melissa, have lots of songs the product of some band jams where everyone writes it. That would be fun--songs with six names after them!

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Use the links below to hear MP3s by The Insiders and The Juleps:

INSIDERS: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/32/the_insiders.html

JULEPS: http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/31/the_juleps.html

Special thanks to Dr. Bristol for his transcription, but mostly to Gary Yerkins for his music.

(C) 2000 - Bill Holmes