Ultimate Fakebook

Bill McShane – guitar, vocals
Eric Melin – drums
Nick Colby – bass

If rock and roll is dead, somebody forgot to tell Ultimate Fakebook.

Not rap-metal or dance-pop or alt-country, but rock and roll: that unique musical vehicle for the uniquely American sense of freedom; that now middle-aged but still transcendent form with the power to bring to life a dream, a personality, even an entire world view in the space of a three-minute song.

Bill McShane, Eric Melin, and Nick Colby–the three members of Manhattan, Kansas trio Ultimate Fakebook–remember when music could lift you up rather than just beat you senseless. They grew up in Middle America as fans of musicians who seemed more or less just like them, not polished products of some distant entertainment factory.

In their good-natured and unassuming way, Ultimate Fakebook are on a mission: to bring back the warmth, humor, compassion and exhilarating energy of great rock and roll. And with the July, 2000 release of their 550 Music/Epic album This Will Be Laughing Week, Bill, Eric and Nick will take one giant step towards their goal.

From within the confines of their sturdy three-piece sound, Ultimate Fakebook crank a surprising variety of grooves and moods. “Tell Me What You Want,” the first radio track, is an irresistible melodic rocker, with Bill’s yearning vocal sliding into falsetto on the chorus. “I’m All l Out Of It Now” has the jaunty air of a late-Sixties Kinks track, while “Far, Far Away” might be the finest Replacements tribute yet recorded, with all the headlong drive (and some of the sonic signposts) of the ‘Mats at their best.

On “Of Course We Will,” a hard-edged folk-rock sound (ringing guitars, jingling tambourine) frames one of Ultimate Fakebook’s more philosophical lyrics. “That song is about wondering if your dreams are gonna come true,” McShane explains. “You’re working hard at something–like this band–and all of a sudden you think to yourself, ‘Gee, I don’t know if we’re ever gonna get anywhere with this thing–or are we?’”

“Out of that feeling, I was inspired to write a song that says: ”Who cares? Whatever happens, I’m still gonna do what I want to do.’ ”

Then there’s the funny, yet touching fable of the local rock band everyone remembers from high school, as earnest as they were untalented.This one calls itself “Brokn Nedle.”

“I kept singing the phrase in my head and it made no sense,” says Bill. “But that was what was so perfect: It’s like one of those stupid names, with a stupid spelling, that you would pick for your high school band. It’s a song that takes you back to that time, about starting a band with your friends and aiming to take over the world.”

Manhattan, Kansas may seem an unlikely birthplace for rock’s Next Big Thing. But that’s where Bill McShane (age 26, on guitar and vocals), Eric Melin (28, drums) and Nick Colby (26, bass) came together. Bill and Nick are third cousins who grew up in Beloit, Kansas: They literally learned to play their instruments together and formed their first band when Bill was 15 and Nick was 16.

“Nick and I always knew we wanted to be in a band, even before we could play instruments,” Bill admits cheerfully. “It was our first career choice–and there was no second choice. We had this rock and roll sickness all the way back then.”

Eric began playing drums as a freshman in high school, after giving up the trombone. “I bought this cheesy drum set for $100, and started playing along with all the metal albums I listened to in high school. I never took any lessons–just sat there with headphones on, playing along until I could play all these songs.”

After a childhood infatuation with KISS, Eric hit the hard stuff: Metallica, Slayer, and the like. “Later I realized you could write songs without being metal. So I got into the bands like Soul Asylum and Replacements. Now my music collection is hideously huge–I’m really getting into rock and roll from all decades.”

Nick and Bill moved to Manhattan in 1994, and formed the first version of Ultimate Fakebook. “It was a four-piece, with a lead singer who also played guitar,” says Bill. “We sounded nothing like we do today. When the singer quit, we had time booked at a studio and I said, ‘Hey, whaddya say I try singing and in two weeks we’ll go in to record?’”

“And that changed our whole sound, with my style of songwriting and my voice. Nick and I had always been on the same page, and he wanted to go in this new direction as well.”

These sessions brought forth Electric Kissing Parties, the first CD by Ultimate Fakebook, released on Noisome Records. “We slowly expanded our touring range,” Eric recalls. “In ’98 we did a lot of Midwest dates: Chicago, Minneapolis, Iowa City–places we could cover in a weekend when we could get off work.” In April 1999, the band released the original indie version of This Will Be Laughing Week, “and since then we’ve pretty much been on tour all over the country.”

Bill: “We stayed with friends, or meet kids at the shows and crash at their house. One time we had lunch the next day with this kid and his whole family. We were all about making friends and playing to anybody and everybody.”

The album was recorded at Red House Studios in Eudora, Kansas and produced by Ed Rose, who also produced Electric Kissing Parties. “Ed basically forced us into the studio after he saw us play our new songs live,” says Eric. The urgency and excitement in the songs comes off on the album. This Will Be Laughing Week has old school rock and roll enthusiasm to spare.

Do you remember when getting tickets to a rock show was the most important thing that happened that day? Do you remember when rock and roll was fun? Ultimate Fakebook does, and This Will Be Laughing Week.