Bran Van 3000 The Story of Drinking in L.A.

The story of Bran Van 3000's hit song 'Drinking in L.A.'

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I had previously done a video on the rise and fall of the canadian big shiny tunes compilation albums. One of the group’s featured in the video was Bran Van 3000 who appeared on the first big shiny tunes and a few people in the comments of that video, requested I do a story on them. Bran Van 3000 would be best known for the 1997 hit ‘Drinkin in LA’ but did you know one of people who prominently appeared on the track’ tried to be erased by the record label? That’s what we’re going to explore in today’s video.
Formed in montreal bran van, 3000 is a canadian rock and hip hop group, The origin of the group began with James De Salvo who in the mid 90’s was working at a video production company named propaganda films where his colleagues included spike jonze and michael condry. He also had a side gig as a DJ.
It was in 1994 De Salvo he was going through some financial troubles. He had recently done some work with a french canadian artist jean leloup and branford marsalis and he received a royalty cheque. Rather than saving the money, De Salvo wanted to build a studio in his montreal apartment. It was around this time an old buddy from the montreal club scene named EP Bergen was planning on going to new york city and invited him on the trip. As the pair were walking through washington square park they talked about setting up a musical project together and came up with the name Bran Van 3000. The name really had no meaning, it was gibberish. It was on that trip they headed to sam ash to buy some sampling equipment. Upon returning to the hip montreal neighbourhood of mile end, they began working on what would be their debut album, titled Glee.
It would have a wide cast of collaborators including a street performer they came across who could play teh clarinet pretty well and they included him on two songs couch surfer and supermodel. Their debut album Glee would have over 30 guest musicians and span multiple genres. One of the musicians who guest starred on the record, most notably appearing on the track drinkin in LA singing the hook would be Stephanie Moraille (Steph-ann More-i). At the time she was going to law school, teaching aerobics and working as a part-time singer. She had originally envisioned becoming a dancer studying ballet, but things wouldn’t work out after she blew her knee out. After that, she needed a creative outlet, so she turned to singing. She fronted a Canadian house music project called Shauana Davis with their most memorable hits being Try My Love and Get Away. She had a friend who was friends with EP Bergen and he was looking for a singer to appear on the song drinkin in LA. She would tell Q with Tom Power that she almost never recorded teh song, because it was the middle of winter and it was -40 outside. She would recall.
"If I had a cell phone back then I would have cancelled.. But in the '90s, if you said you were going to be at a place at a certain time, you had to show up because there was no other way to contact anyone… I show up at the studio. [Bran Van founder] James [Di Salvio] shows me, like, chicken scratch lyrics, and then I hear the guitar riff. I'm like, 'Wow, this is going to work.' I down a beer and then I sing the chorus." She drank the beer because she was tired and the members said it would perk her up. She came up with the melody and the bridge and the rest was history. The song would be mixed in February and released in March of 1997.
Drinking in LA would be the last song written for Glee. It was sometime in the 90’s Salvo woke up one morning on a lawn in West Hollywood and asked himself “what the hell am i doing drinking in LA?”and that’s where the inspiration for the song came from.
De Salvo knew right away they had a massive hit on their hands. telling the Toronto Star “it’s was almost like one of those animated movies where a blue bird swings by over real live footage. It’s cheesy, but i knew in my heart it was a hit.” De Salvo soon took a trip to south by southwest in 97 and It was during a trip to he brought cassettes with the word Glee in helvetica font with his Montreal 514 area code number on them.
On the last day of SXSW De Salvo bumped into Moby and gave hi