By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
October 10, 1991
When Jim Ellison lived at home in west suburban Addison, his parents got used to waking up and finding teenage girls parked in front of their home, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Material Issue singer.
When he was on the road touring, Ellison’s mom would walk past his bedroom and hear giggling fans leaving vaguely obscene messages on his answering machine.
“Believe it or not, my mother actually called and said she missed all that,” said Ellison, who recently moved into an apartment on Chicago’s North Side. “I should’ve probably been living by myself a long time ago, but I didn’t because I put all my effort and money into the band. I love my family and talk to them all the time, but it’s nice to be in the city and hang out when we’re not on the road.”
Since the Chicago-based pop trio’s LP “International Pop Overthrow” was released earlier this year, Material Issue has spent a good chunk of time away from home promoting it. The band, which also includes bassist Ted Ansani and drummer Mike Zelenko, headlines its biggest hometown date at 7:30 Friday night at the Riviera, 4746 N. Racine (559-1212). Opening is Gutterboy.
Just back from a two-week trip to L.A. where he collaborated with other songwriters, Ellison stopped for lunch and a chat at a local diner. Wearing ripped blue jeans, a white T-shirt and an earring, he ate exactly one half of his cheeseburger, minus lettuce and tomatoes, and downed half a bowl of rice and gravy. Lighting up a Marlboro, Ellison appeared relaxed – a far cry from the manic performer he turns into onstage.
“It’s not like I have two different personalities for onstage and off or anything like that,” Ellison said. “But it’s not too difficult to scream and run around like a nut when kids are jumping around and dancing like crazy in front of you. It just seems to fit.”
Formed five years ago, Material Issue won local critical acclaim for its punk-infused pop songs before being signed to Mercury Records last year. So far, “International Pop Overthrow” has sold 200,000 copies, making the band one of Chicago’s most successful exports. At a time when the charts are crammed with groups layering vocals with electronic samples, Material Issue released an album that relied on little more than the basic rock ‘n’ roll lineup and a repertoire of songs in which girls vied with cars for boys’ attentions. Even Ellison, the band’s strongest supportor, was dubious when the record shipped at 60,000 copies.
“We thought that was death for us and that we’d face the embarrassment of getting all these records returned to us,” he said. “As an unknown band, we thought it was realistic to expect to sell only about 20,000 copies or so, but we did really well our first time out. (Mercury) tells us that, when we make our next record, they’ll probably ship at, like, 150,000 copies. The whole process is amazing when you think about it.” At 25, Ellison is the eldest member of Material Issue, as well as the band’s songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and frontman. While it
would seem that this artistic imbalance would make it difficult to maintain democracy within the group, Ellison said that isn’t so.
“It’s still pretty much a democracy – the only thing is I write the songs,” he said. “But if the songs don’t get past Ted and Mike, they’ll never get played. I only wrote the songs because nobody else wanted to. It wasn’t like I shoved them in a corner and said, `I’m going to write all the songs. Don’t even think about trying it.’
“Wanting to become a songwriter is how I actually got into music. In order to write songs, I had to be able to play an instrument, so I learned the guitar. And then I sang them because nobody else would. It’s worked out well because I would never want to be one of those singers that just stands there and doesn’t play anything. Very few people can pull that off, except for maybe someone like (Cheap Trick vocalist) Robin Zander. That’s real rare.”
