deathtokoalas
nobody called them emo until like the early 00s, when a backstory was created. at the time, they were variously considered 'grunge' or 'post-grunge', and often compared to candlebox as a part of a second wave of seattle acts. i mean, they are, after all, a dissonant-heavy 90s rock band from seattle with vaguely punk roots.
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deathtokoalas
self-mutilation is waaaaaay older than emo. and i'm not even convinced that's more than a bad stereotype.
i didn't really start seeing kids start dressing like that until around '01 or '02, and my first impression was actually that they were into ebm/industrial. it took me a while to realize otherwise.
i actually really liked this band in the 90s, but they weren't connected to jawbox or weezer or any of that other stuff. well, i liked weezer, too. everybody liked weezer! i pointed out that the media compared them to candlebox, but that didn't really make a lot of sense, either.
you know what did make sense as a comparison? radiohead. everybody i knew that liked one liked the other. it was on a radiohead mailing list that i was first introduced to sdre. if you bumped into a radiohead fan at a party, sdre would have been a reasonable topic of conversation.
another band that shared large amounts of fans with sdre and radiohead at the time was sigur ros. also, the smashing pumpkins - although they had a much larger and much more diverse fan base. i knew about saetia waaaaaay before they were cool by checking out np: tags at alt.fan.smashing-pumpkins. thought they sucked, actually :P
so, the point is to be careful about what you read in press releases and corporate penned biographies. hint: two members of sdre joined the foofighters, making owning the rights to sdre lucrative shit.
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deathtokoalas
i don't know of any 90s emo band members that cut themselves, either, though. not that i'm paying close attention or anything...
