PureVolume

Members: Randall, Stephanie, John, Brad, Josh, Brandon, Matt

:PN: 1996-2003

"I think we"re going on a permanent hiatus," singer Randall Sharkey says. "It"s really very sad."

The reason given is "personal and artistic differences" between various members of the band, according to Sharkey.

"We haven"t been seeing eye to eye on a creative basis," he said. "It"s just started to fall apart. People grow up and kind of grow apart. I"ve been dedicating a lot of my time to a solo project."

Perfect Nothing - which consists of singers Sharkey and Stephanie Brewer, guitarists John Herman and Josh Kappel, bassist Brandon Lytle and drummer Matt Wilson - seemed poised for major-label success just a year ago, when Roadrunner Records was preparing to release their album.

The metalcore band, which began playing shows in 1996, has released four albums and played hundreds of shows in Indianapolis and the Midwest. But the artistic differences have led to the dissolution of the band as it prepares to self-release its most polished album.

"I don"t get it," Sharkey said. "We should be really happy right now. Things have been going really well for us. But there"s been a lot of apathy going through the band Ö We"ve always had a lot of drama in Perfect Nothing, but we"ve always been able to get through it until now.

"I don"t know what"s the matter here," Sharkey said. "We"ve tried and tried and tried to work it out and it"s not working out. I refuse to put myself through that." He dropped out of college a few years ago and now wants to go back.

The band"s recent troubles began in early 2001 when it signed a development deal with Roadrunner Records. Perfect Nothing received a $60,000 advance and spent a month recording Ten Thousand Stars in Miami with producer Paul Trust.

Ironically, on Monday, the day after the band held its last practice, staffers at No Name Records were holding a meeting on whether to release the album.

Perfect Nothing has been down this road before. On the day the band was first contacted by Roadrunner, the group scheduled a band meeting at which they were going to break up.

"An hour before the meeting was going to take place, Roadrunner called us and told us that they dug what they heard and they were flying out to see us, blah blah blah. They came out and saw us and sent another A&R guy out to see us."

The "A&R guy," Derek Oliver, was starting a spinoff label from Roadrunner and wanted Perfect Nothing to be part of it. "He basically gave us a lot of money and sent us off to Florida and told us to have fun," Sharkey said.

"We came back and we waited and waited and waited," Sharkey recalled. "The week we turned in the CD, Island officially took over the Roadrunner offices, our A&R guy got the boot and we pretty much went with him."

The band found itself in a strange position where the album was done but nobody could listen to it. Roadrunner wouldn"t release it but still owned the rights to the master tapes, keeping PN from releasing it on their own.

It was at that point, Sharkey said, that the band began its slow decline. "We pretty much fell by the wayside then," he said. "People stopped coming to practice. I stopped writing songs for PN and started writing songs for my new band. That didn"t go over too well."

They continued to play gigs while struggling with their bad fortune and internal difficulties.

They"ve been the victims of some bad luck. "We went out to Texas to play some showcases for labels," Sharkey said. "When we got back, we found out that two labels had called us, but it wasn"t any of the labels who"d been at the shows."

Now, Sharkey said, "We"re not working personally any more. That would be fine, except that it"s not working artistically, either. When people don"t see eye to eye on songs, it"s a real struggle."

Sharkey"s new songs are "not aggressive at all," he said, and more in the vein of "sappy folk songs" than traditional Perfect Nothing material.

"My tastes haven"t changed at all," he said. "I"ve always been more centered in roots-type material. My all-time favorite artist is Bob Dylan. I"ve always enjoyed the contrast between that and what we play. John would write these metal riffs and then I"d add a pop edge."

Fritos and frenzy:
Perfect Nothing formed in 1996 as a folk-rock band, strangely enough. "We wanted to be bigger than Birdmen of Alcatraz," Sharkey said. Their first show was so awful, according to Sharkey, that even the members" parents stopped applauding after the first song. The group was booed off the stage. At that point, "We sold all of our Christmas presents and bought electric guitars."

Retooling themselves as a progressive metal band, they added Wilson on drums and Brewer as co-lead vocalist and began to find their niche in a moribund music scene.

Their first album, Painful Intercourse (1997), was raw but energetic and showed promise for the future. Making themselves ubiquitous at venues such as the Emerson and Smedley"s, they built a rabidly loyal fan base of both metal and hardcore fans. Another album followed in 1998.

They hosted events such as Frito Fest, at which the band would douse themselves and the audience with ice cream, candy and the corn-chip snack, and an annual Valentine"s Day show called The Day of Hate Festival.

But it was The Black Dahlia (2000) that got many to take notice of them. With graphic cover art showing a woman in a murderous rage, the disc was the group"s most polished to date. Containing songs that would later be re-recorded for Ten Thousand Stars, the album was a masterpiece of controlled rage and frustration.

While the band continued to play gigs, record labels began snooping around, attracted by the dueling vocals of Sharkey and Brewer as well as the band"s savage guitar work and tribal drumming by Wilson.

The new album

If Perfect Nothing is indeed finished after Saturday"s show, Ten Thousand Stars will be the band"s epitaph. Rarely has a band ended on such a high note. Worth every penny of the estimated $50,000 it took to record, it"s a collection of defiant music tinged with optimism.

The disc attacks the listener from the first notes of the first song, "Foulkrod," which encapsulates every attractive quality of Perfect Nothing: the howling guitars, thudding bass, brutal drumming and vocal interplay between Sharkey and Brewer.

"Gonna cut off all my hair, gonna shave all my pride," Sharkey sings.


Brewer adds, "Screaming, "I"m alive.""


"Gonna douse myself in gasoline and let the sun set me on fire," Sharkey continues.


The two trade-off lines in the song"s memorable chorus: "I don"t want to be someone special, I just want to be a revolution."


The disc is brimming with memorable hooks, riffs and phrases. "Gen" contains some of the most focused and funky playing ever heard from the band.


Serving as a de facto greatest-hits package due to the inclusion of previously recorded songs, Ten Thousand Stars contains the ultimate versions of such PN staples as "God" and "Anything Yet," the latter song a prime example of the teamwork between Brewer and Sharkey. The two alternate lines, screams and howls as the song reaches a climax.


While Sharkey said the band is definitely done after Saturday, drummer Wilson is less certain, calling it "an extended hiatus." "We just need to take a break," he said.


Even Sharkey holds out the promise of reunion gigs at some point, but said that Perfect Nothing, as a working band, will play its last show.


Giving thanks to their longtime fans, Perfect Nothing will distribute copies of Ten Thousand Stars to everyone at Saturday"s show. Also appearing will be Theta, Calico System, Amongst The Swarm and Marionette.


The band could well split into two halves, with one faction continuing under another name, but nothing is certain at this point.


"We"re not going out on a bad note," Wilson said. "But we all have this cloud above our heads, and it"s definitely raining."