Tonic: Whatever Happened To The Band Behind "If You Could Only See" & "Lemon Para

Tonic: Whatever happened to the band behind "Lemon Parade" and the hit single "If you could only see?"

0:00 - Early Years
2:11 - Tonic gets discovered/success
5:33 - Tonic's downfall

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#lemonparade #tonic #emersonhart

I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

Tonic would rise out of the ashes of grunge music, which was mostly on it’s way out by the time the group showed up on most people’s radar by the mid 90’s. The group’s 1996 debut album Lemon Parade would be the career high for the group going platinum and producing several big singles including “If you could only see.” But whatever happened to the band? That’s what we’re going to explore in today’s video.

Made up of members including vocalist and guitarist Emerson Hart, lead guitarist Jeff Russo, bassist Dan Lavery and drummer Kevin Shepard, Tonic fought against critics their whole careerwho levied two charges against them. 1) that they were too influenced by 70’s rock and 2) since they formed in LA they were image conscious. The band would answer these charges with guitarist Jeff Russo telling the LA Times
“We just focus on writing the best possible songs and then go on stage and give as much of ourselves to the audience as we can,”We don’t think in terms of alternative rock or guitar rock . . . or how many CDs can we sell.
“We just have to be ourselves, and so far, enough people seem to like who we are--or at least what we play,”It’s too bad that some bands have to get arrested or look like Marilyn Manson to attract attention. That’s just not us. Over time, I believe we will stand or fall on the quality of our songs.”


The band’s origins dated back to New Jersey where Russo and Hart first met while attending the same high school - red bank catholic high. Emerson Hart’s mother worked for a local television station while father was a pretty talented singer who suffered from schizophrenia and vanished in 1980. Hart suspects his father was possibly murdered, a subject he discussed on one of his solo records years later. .

Both musicians would head out west to Los Angeles at separate times and would run into each other years later in 1991 at Canter’s Deli. The establishment would hold “jam night” in the restaurant’s Kibitz Room where bands like the Wallflowers and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash would be seen from time to time.

The pair soon started jamming together, and writing songs, which got the attention of EMI Music who signed the pair to a publishing deal. Soon afterwards they added bassist Dan Rothchild and drummer kevin Shepard.Soon enough, Tonic would be born in 1993. According to MTV Hart named the the group "tonic" after the first note (degree) of any diatonic (e.g., major or minor) scale.

Tonic became regulars for almost half a year at the LA club The Mint where they got the attention of Polydor Records who signed them on Halloween in 1994 backstage at the club. It was during this time the members were working day jobs to support their music with Russo worked as a chef at a restaurant. Hart was a manager at a pool hall and worked at Fender, building guitars while Rothchild worked as a structural engineer. They all hated their day jobs so getting signed was a god-send to them.

The band enlisted producer Joseph Puig who had previously worked with Weezer and No Doubt to work on their debut album. Puig would get a chance to see the band perform the material they had written in a live setting during their regular shows at the Mint. From that point, as Hart remembers, Puig (pwig) helped them to hone in on the distortion heavy sound that they were going to capture in the studio

While Tonic wrapped up recording of LemonParade in 1995, their label let it sit for almost an year. Polydor told the group to go out on the road in order hone their live chops. With Hart telling Diffuser “We were on the road for almost a year before our record came out,” “The label was like, ‘Get in a van, go do crappy gigs for a year and become good artists.’ Because labels used to do that! So by the time, ‘Open Up Your Eyes’ [was released] -- that went to radio in ‘96 and that was our first No. 1 at rock radio -- we were already in shape."

Lemon Parade was by no means an instant seller, but rather a slow burn. According to the VP of marketing at Polydor he would tell billboard “sales always stuck between 1500 to 2400 pieces week in