Von Bondies Fight Back for the Fans

The Von Bondies have been getting more press than they are accustomed to in recent months thanks to lead singer Jason Stollsteimer’s bloody altercation with Jack White of the White Stripes-—an incident that sent Stollsteimer to the hospital and White into police custody last December.

The picture of a post-fight Stollsteimer taken shortly after the event is startlingly painful to look at. Stollsteimer’s face is almost unrecognizable—all swollen, purple and bloodied. Adding to the 90210-style smuttiness of the matter, and its appeal to mass audiences, White and the Von Bondies used to be friends. They’re all from Detroit and share a blues-inflected rock sound. Jack White even produced their debut album and dated Von Bondies guitarist Marcie Bolen.

It’s unfortunate that the Von Bondies—talented and deserving of attention in their own, musical right—have been reduced to music-mag gossip pages. But then again, it’s hard to imagine dreaming up a more effective publicity stunt. All the juicy elements are there: betrayal, violence and sympathy for the injured. And even the Von Bondies have to admit that any press is good for a burgeoning band with a new album on the way. It seems doubtful Stollsteimer would have otherwise scored himself a three-inch face shot in Rolling Stone.

“There’s this whole adage that any press is good press,” bassist Carrie Smith says before the Von Bondies’ Monday night concert at the Middle East. “But it’s kind of hard to look at it that way when something that horrible happens to somebody I really care about, because I do care about Jason. He’s one of my best friends. And it kind of sucks that people ask about it all the time and are gossipy about it. But I know it gets our name out there and at least when somebody reads a record review they’re like, ‘Oh the Von Bondies, I’ve heard that name before.’ It does suck on a purely personal level, but on a career level, looking at it from the point of what it has done for the band, I guess,” she says, hesitating, then offers an accepting “okay.”

But the Von Bondies are not complete amateurs when it comes to dealing with media frenzy. They’ve been famous in the United Kingdom for a couple of years, turning up repeatedly in English music magazines such as New Musical Express (NME). The British press, notorious for over-hyping bands in a constant search for the next big thing, caught on to the Von Bondies after the White Stripes’ popularity soared. Marcie Bolen was even featured at number seven in NME’s 2002 Cool List. Meg White and Jack White, incidentally, rung in at numbers six and one, respectively.

“In the U.K. you get a lot more of these weekly [magazines] like Kerrang! and NME,” Smith offers as explanation for their overseas popularity. “They have the ability to report and look into these bands that perhaps [magazines in the] U.S. aren’t doing because they only want to grab the big things that are happening. They want to talk about the Queens of the Stone Age and the Foo Fighters—the big bands as opposed to a lot of the smaller bands that are just as good but aren’t getting as much attention because [they] don’t have the pages to devote to [them]. There is definitely more turnover [in the United Kingdom]. That definitely worked in our favor.”

Putting right place at the right time reasoning and overzealous magazine reporting aside, the Von Bondies are popular and have stayed popular in the U.K. because of one simple thing—they are exciting. Their debut album, 2001’s Lack of Communication, was a deliciously raucous melding of ’60s soul-channeling and furious garage punk. And the soon to be released Pawn Shoppe Heart, already available in the U.K. and on iTunes, offers more of the same addictive, bombastic energy, only cleaner and with slightly less of a blues slant. This second album marks their major label debut—they’ve switched from the indie Sympathy for the Record Industry to Sire, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers—and it shows in the quality of recording.

“How we recorded [Pawn Shoppe Heart] was really different. Lack of Communication we recorded basically in two days. When we went to record a song, as long as no one screwed up royally, we just moved on to the next song because we didn’t have enough time, or money for that matter,” says Smith.

But, thankfully, fewer mistakes and smoother recordings on their new album do not detract from the Von Bondies’ refreshing rawness.

Still, either of their two records offer only a taste of the power the Von Bondies generate playing live. They began their Monday night set with a wobbly start—Bolen’s guitar strap fell off less than a minute into the angry, rumbling opener, first album title track “Lack of Communication.” Then, a line into the first verse, Stollsteimer walked offstage, leaving the crowd and fellow band members utterly confused.

“I don’t know what just happened,” Bolen said apologetically into her microphone. “A little lack of communication,” Stollsteimer explained after returning a moment later, smiling slyly as the audience laughed at his allusion. The rest of the show ran smoothly, if that word can even be used to describe the Bondies’ arsenal of fiery rock ’n roll tunes: Stollsteimer’s Otis Redding-influenced howl bellowing over surging currents of guitar, bass and drums.

Aside from their appealing songs and vibrant energy, the Von Bondies are also an uncommonly diverse rock band. The group is half girls, half guys, and drummer Dom Blum is one of very few Asian-American rockers. “Virtually anyone who comes to one of our shows can probably identify with one of us, which is pretty unique,” says Smith. “It’s an image too, but we were never conscious of it. Marcie and I just happened to be girls. I mean, we could play music and just happened to be girls on the side.”

They are also cute, which can’t hurt their popularity. But with all the possibility that recent attention and a new major label release seem to offer, the Von Bondies don’t care what comes of their fame. “[It’s] not like we need to be headlining Lollapalooza next year,” Smith says. “We don’t have really big, crazy goals like that. I love what I do. I love being in this band and it’s an opportunity that a lot of people don’t get.

“But at the same time there are so many other things I want to do with my life,” Smith adds. “I don’t expect us to last 20 years, I mean we are not going to be the next Fleetwood Mac or anything like that. [We’re] just going to ride this out for as long as [we] can, and whatever comes up comes up.”

—Staff writer Sarah L. Solorzano can be reached at solorzan@fas.harvard.edu