By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
January 31, 1997
It’s not often that having no money or a reputation are considered fortuitous in filmmaking. But when director Doug Pray and producer Steve Helvey decided to make a movie about the Seattle music community, their do-it-yourself attitude endeared themselves to the film’s subjects. Even reclusive Eddie Vedder spoke candidly on-camera about feeling guilty that his band, Pearl Jam, was enjoying so much success while older Seattle bands went unappreciated. “Hype!” opens today.
“If we had blown into town with a ton of money and all the connections in the world, I don’t think we could have made this movie,” said Pray, 36, whose first film was a 10-minute short shot in Chicago called “Chicken to Control.” “I don’t think the bands would have trusted us. We probably would have shot the footage in three weeks, edited in six weeks and made a grunge movie and everyone would’ve said, `How stupid. Isn’t grunge over?’
“Instead we went up (to Seattle) and found a more interesting story of how a pop culture phenomenon is born and how it dies. We spent 1992 to 1996 working on the project, and I had apprehensions about doing it at first because the Seattle music scene had already peaked for all intents and purposes. On the one hand I thought making a film about it was the stupidest thing in the world, but on the other it was a fascinating idea. We didn’t want to make a movie about rock stars so much as a film that said something about music and our culture.”
The film explores the Seattle music community’s exasperation at seeing their lifestyle exaggerated and twisted, and the media’s fascination with so-called grunge fashion. Megan Jasper, a former publicist at Seattle’s indie Sub Pop Records, recalls how a New York Times reporter called asking her for the local vernacular. Jasper told him that in grunge speak, wack slacks meant old, ripped jeans, and kickers referred to heavy boots. The Times reprinted her made-up definitions as “The Lexicon of Grunge.”
“The bands would lie all the time,” Pray said, laughing. “Not because they were trying to be jerks, but because they kept being asked about things that had nothing to do with their music.”
Because of his friendship with the musicians in the Young Fresh Fellows, one of the first Seattle bands to gain nationwide attention, Pray had access to other groups who heard that he was genuine. Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, 7 Year Bitch, Screaming Trees, Tad and the Melvins are among the bands that speak and perform, offering sarcastic little gems such as “Major (record) labels are like big, dumb Baby Hueys.”
While there is footage of Nirvana’s first live performance of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” an interview with Kurt Cobain is glaringly missing.
“Nirvana didn’t have any reason to jump on a bandwagon because they were the most popular band on the scene,” said the UCLA film school grad. “Their schedule was insane. They knew about the project and when we got the archival footage, they were cool about it and that’s all that we could ask for.”
EYE CANDY: It’s Elvis Presley week on VH1. But instead of airing some of his cheesy old movies, the cable music channel is showing some of the best music specials made about the king of rock ‘n’ roll. Highlights include the ” ’68 Comeback Special” (think black leather suit) at 7 p.m. Monday and “Aloha From Hawaii” at 7 p.m. Wednesday. . . . E-mail comments to jaehakim@suntimes.com
