Spit For Athena

You know you've made it in the entertainment industry when you start having dolls made of you. Of course, when you're local band Spit For Athena, and those dolls are made by your lead singer's fiancé's mom, maybe you've haven't quite made it. Yet, that is.

Originally formed in Coldwater, Mich., Spit For Athena is now on the cusp of gaining national attention with the upcoming release of its first Eyeball Records release Extermina, the follow-up to its self-titled debut released on local label Friction Records last year. The band is made up of vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Levi Bailey, bassist Melanie Cumming and drummer Matt Budd, and has been playing more and more shows around the Midwest since beginning in the summer of 2001.

So how does someone go from a city in rural West Michigan to a New York City-based label famous for first signing the likes of Thursday, Murder By Death and My Chemical Romance? Perhaps the answer lies in the city of Coldwater itself.

"Coldwater is strange," Bailey said about his hometown. "At first glance, Coldwater is just another Wal-Mart city - no decent places for kids to hang out, no places to see rock shows. It's quiet, and the powers-that-be like to keep it that way. But, obviously, we're from there, and we're all kind of crazy. All our friends there are crazy. There's a lot of good bands in Coldwater, and the scene has a really interesting history, but it can really suck to live there if you're a kid."

"It forces the creativity out of you," Cumming added. "You have to make something out of nothing; you have to have big goals. Otherwise, you stagnate and die."

Coldwater's relative proximity to Kalamazoo, Detroit, Chicago and Lansing also helped make it so the band could slowly branch out and build up a fan-base early in its career, thanks to several venues in those cities open to the band's dark and noisy punk rock, as well as Bailey's occasional decision to dress like a woman onstage.

"Places like Harvey's On The Mall and The Space in Kalamazoo, [which are] now both closed, and Mac's Bar in Lansing were really supportive of us when we first started playing shows," Bailey said.

Although Bailey originally laughed off the idea of sending Eyeball Records a demo when a friend suggested it to him years ago, the band eventually decided to go ahead and send one in as a joke after seeing a full-page ad in the first few pages of an issue of Alternative Press.

The label came calling a few days later.

"When they responded positively, it was very exciting," Cumming said. "They were one yes out of many no's, and Eyeball has a name and growing reputation going for them."

After signing to Eyeball like "starving animals," as Bailey put it, and going through the traumatic and stressful process of being a new band on an established label, it's fitting that the disc's unusual title, Extermina, actually comes from one of the major roads here in Michigan that's helped take Spit For Athena where it is today.

"On [US-]131 in Grand Rapids you can see a neon sign for Rose Exterminators, and they always seem to have bad luck keeping it running correctly," Bailey explained. "For awhile, it just said 'Extermina.' I liked how the word looked, and thinking about it reminded me of my fiancé, Brandy, who I now live with in Kentwood. The more I thought about the word, though, the more it creeped me out. It isn't a very friendly word. I mean, it comes from the word extermination.

"The subtitle of the CD, Labor Pains, B.B. refers to how difficult it was to get to this point as a band, and all the ugliness I've made it through as a person, with Brandy and Spit For Athena's help."

In addition to the release of Extermina, Spit For Athena has included the Cloud City Studios version of "Afraid of Me" on the recently released Kalamazoo Compilation 2004 Edition and just recorded three new tracks last month for an upcoming four-way split release on Friction Records.

Currently, Spit For Athena is set to tour in support of Extermina during the first two weeks of June and has plans for a longer tour in July. This month, the band will be playing three shows around West Michigan: at the Coldwater American Legion on May 2, the Division Avenue Arts Collective in Grand Rapids on May 21, and Kraftbrau Brewery in Kalamazoo on May 28. For other tour dates, or to find out how to get your own set of Spit For Athena dolls with a free live bonus CD, check out spitforathena.net.

May 2004