When he was attending Hampshire College, Elliott became friends with Neil Gust, with whom he shared the same view on American society and culture. They formed the band Heatmiser in 1991 and when they move back in Portland, drummer Tony Lash joined the band, as well as Brandt Peterson (bass) who was later replaced by Sam Coomes (later the frontman of Quasi).
Anger, alienation and loneliness were recurrent themes in the songs, which were alternatively written by Elliott Smith and Neil Gust, but Neil’s writing included some gay-themed songs and this is why Heatmiser was labeled as a ‘queercore’ or ‘homocore’ band by the mainstream press.
‘The Music of Heatmiser’ (1992) was a demo cassette with 6 tracks, and whereas ‘Lowlife’, ‘Bottle Rocket’, ‘Buick’ and ‘Dirt’ were included on Heatmiser’s first full-length album, ‘Just a Little Prick’ and ‘Mightier Than You’ didn’t make the final cut.
Their first record ‘Dead Air’ was released on the Frontier label in 1993, but it was in 1994 that they began to attract some real attention with the EP ‘Yellow No. 5’ and their second album ‘Cop and Speeder’. On these albums, it is strange to listen to Elliott’s voice loud, confident and pissed off most of the time.
This second album was released in 1994 and it was the same year that Elliott Smith also released his solo album ‘Roman Candle’. Both albums are totally different but there are elements from Elliott’s contribution in ‘Cop and Speeder’ that certainly show where he was going with his music. You can hear here and there some glimpses, some riffs of what will be Elliott’s best work later on. Out of the 14 tracks, 8 were written by Elliott, the other ones by Neil Gust, but if you like Elliott’s solo work, some of his songs on this album (‘Antonio Carlos Jobim’, ‘Something to Lose’) will inevitably steal the show. It is mostly a question of different arrangement and production.
If Heatmiser was the start of Elliott’s career, by the time they released their last album in 1996, Elliott had already two solo albums out. ‘Mic City Sons’ was released as the band was in the process of breaking up although Elliott said in a 1997 interview that Heatmiser had just signed a contract with Virgin.
All the songs written by Elliott for this last album are a turning point, they are completely different from what he had previously written for Heatmiser, and have definitively the kind of sound the songs of his solo work have. ‘Mic City Sons’ is more like two albums in one with a dichotomy that announced what would eventually happen.
The success of ‘Roman Candle’ caused tensions in the band and eventually led to the band’s break-up which happened in 1996. Neil Gust went on to play in the band No. 2, whereas Coomes formed Quasi with his wife Janet Weiss.
Though Elliott has a tough regard on his early material, and in particular on his own singing, there are some Heatmiser songs he was still occasionally playing during his solo career.
• The Music of Heatmiser (1992 – demo cassette):
4th Track “Just a Little Prick’: If it is Elliott singing (I’m still wondering) his voice is very different and sounds so tough, no wonder he was making fun of his singing later on!
6th track ‘Mightier Than You’ (demo): This one rocks hard, it’s short, direct and effective.
• Dead Air (1993 – Frontier Records):
For me all the songs on Dead Air sound a little bit the same, angry and loud!
1st track ‘Still’: Loud guitars for an angry song about being afraid of something, being afraid of being yourself ‘I don’t wanna be in my body’, and finding a way to escape? ‘Oh ‘come on, oh come on/and open my body up’.
3rd track ‘Mock-Up’: A lot of nervousness in this song, a nervousness, which, once again, is reinforced by the fast rhythm and the loud guitars. Elliott seems particularly pissed off in that one.
4th track ‘Dirt’: Two things noticeable for this song, first it was covered by Iggy Pop and the Stooges at the All Tomorrow’s Parties memorial on November 2003. Iggy dedicated it to Elliott and I must say there was not a dry eye in the audience. Then there is this line ‘A china doll, you wanted it all/you’re a china doll, you don’t feel nothing at all’, an idea that Elliott will explore again later with ‘Waltz no 2’: ‘She shows no emotion at all/stares into space like a dead china doll’. It is a very furious song again.
6th track ‘Blackout’: ‘Asking, permission denied/to self-medicate this way once in a while’: You could not deny that these lyrics come directly from Elliott’s world, the melody however, like all the songs on this album, has none of the subtlety and elegance of any of his songs from his solo material. The song seems to be about a man rejected by his lover and lamenting about letting someone down.
7th track ‘Stray’: In the chorus, Elliott screams ‘Straaaayyyaaayyy’ several times and this should give you the feeling of the song, it is a nightmare! He seems to wake up screaming after a bad dream that he was back in an awful place, may be some terrible memories from his childhood.
9th track ‘Cannibal’: More angst and nightmares from the past bounced by a fast beat: ‘Why’d you lead me around for so long/like nobody can’. It’s difficult to get some bad visions off your head and the line ‘Up on the rooftop my head explodes/just like the fourth of July’ could be the tougher equivalent of ‘Bottle up and explode seeing the stars surrounding you/red white and blue’ in ‘Bottle up and explode!’ from the XO album.
12th track ‘Lowlife’: A fast beat, once again an infuriated song, this time about self-deprecation.
14th track ‘Dead Air’: The title track and the last one on the record, the song is definitively addressed to someone, in a long and bitter rant. Elliott is angry against someone, but this time it seems even more personal and he is really sick of it ‘I’ve been suffocating all night’, he wants to confront violently this person even though the song evokes a lot of frustration ‘And I get fists on my shy nerves/And say it’s this that you deserve’.
• Yellow No. 5 (EP 1994 – Frontier Records):
1st track ‘Wake’: It is a very short song with a fast delivery and the chorus has a more punkish beat than the other ones. A lot of death imagery or rather crime scene imagery ‘I need a chalk outline to lie down in’, which gives to the song an uneasy feeling.
3rd track ‘The Corner Seat’: It seems once again addressed to someone, and some of the lines such as ‘These people don’t know who you are/they’ve seen you play and they’d probably say/you think you’re some kind of star’ and ‘It’s a hip trip man you can never get out of/you’re the one who brought me down here in the first place/oh man I’d rather be in outer space/than follow over to the corner sea’ seem to express some kind of discomfort that Elliott was feeling with his position in the band. At this point, he was not happy with the music he was playing
4th track ‘Idler’: This song has a really different atmosphere, it is more Elliott-like despite the simplicity of the lyrics. It is also interesting he used the ‘Independence day’ line at one point since it is the title of one of his songs on XO. It is a sad song about someone who wants to escape and get his independence from servitude and probably abuse ‘So go back inside/Upstairs and hide’.
• Cop and Speeder (1994 – Frontier Records):
2nd track ‘Bastard John’: It is a rebellion song ‘I’m not your Bastard John’ with some high-energy riffs, a high pitch voice, and some particularly powerful drumming. I can’t help myself to think he considers himself to be a bastard, since the lyrics seems to be once again about his terrible relationship with his stepfather ‘Come here in silence and kiss me quiet lying on the floor/I’m acting dumb like you wanted’.
3rd track ‘Flame!’: More angst and despair, a cry for help on a fast riff, the flame seems to be what burns him inside that nothing can extinguish.
4th track ‘Temper’: A dark song with rough guitars and a chorus ‘Die laughing’, which could seem ironical if there weren’t all these burial references: ‘Been digging up this ditch’, ‘underneath the ground’, ‘underneath this dirty cool’.
6th track ‘Collect to NYC’: Some very frustrated lyrics for a song that Elliott composed at age of 20 when he was a Hampshire student. The line ‘You’re a silence on the phone, you’re a song with just one fucking note’ is interesting because once again it was partially reused later on in ’Some Song’: ‘You’re a symphony, man, with one fucking note’. I’m not sure ‘Collect to NYC’ was addressed to the same person however.
8th track ‘Busted Lip’: A violent song about a fight (?) but quiter and more restrained.. There is also a bulb reference, which will come back later very often in Elliott’s lyrics, like for example in ‘Coming up Roses’: ‘To bury my love under this bare light bulb’ or in ‘St. Ides Heaven’: ‘the moon is a light bulb breaking’.
9th track ‘Antonio Carlos Jobim’: Probably the first song of the album that is completely in the direction of Elliott’s style. It is a stand-out one with a repetitive melody and a quiet start that finishes in an almost angry declaration built up by a louder sound: ‘Said I like what you wrote/But don’t say you mean it/When you know you don’t/You should have been thankful to be alone, you know’. It is not sure if Elliott addresses these lines to himself or to some of his band mates, but it sure shows there was some trouble regarding the different directions the music was taking inside the band.
11th track ‘Something to Lose’: The fuzzy guitar riff at the beginning, the softer and more fragile voice, the melody will all remind an Elliott Smith song, just like the previous one. You could tell he was affirming his songwriting at this time. Even the moon imagery is present: ‘Framed hands make the moon come down’, a line that could be the precursor of ‘the moon is a light bulb breaking/it’ll go around with anyone’ in ‘St. Ides Heaven’.
14th track ‘Nightcap’: This song is actually a collaboration with a friend, Garrick Duckler, and it is a classic Heatmiser song with anger and dark visions ‘If you ever see me in the arms of a gutter out in the ‘burbs/Just say man he’s finally getting all the love he deserves’.
• Mic City Sons (1996)
1st track ‘Get Lucky’: It could almost be a complete Elliott Smith song with more aggressive lyrics and sure a lot of frustration.
2nd track ‘Plainclothes Man’: This song could find its place on one of his first albums because of its themes and harmonies. The title is also interesting because of the reference to a police officer, an authority figure, a theme that will come back later in his ‘Figure 8’ album (a lot of policeman, soldiers and directing figures in this one). There is also the line ‘Waking up to plainclothes man/You little bastard, little boy in blue’ which could be a direct reference to his stepfather (the authority figure precisely). This little boy in blue (probably himself as a child) will come back later in an early version of ‘Pretty Mary K’: ‘Pretty Mary K with some little boy in blue/who can’t stay away from you’. I like how the drums and bass come in a beautiful way in the middle of the song,
5th track ‘The Fix Is In’: The song is mellow sounding with some horns. You can feel a sort of danger all over the song, the danger to do something you could regret later, ‘You’re going down to see her, it’s a big mistake/She got ice she don’t want anyone to break’, but like in the songs he will write for his self-titled album, the ‘she’ could be a girl or not. The line ‘I can’t stand by here waiting while they dumb me down ‘ could be also interpreted as his final comment about the state of the band. And there is a Velvet Underground thing going on with all these ‘sweet nothing’.
8th track ‘You Gotta Move’: With its acoustic beginning, it could remind many songs that figure on his self-titled a
lbum. It is about the desire to escape your life with no escape: ‘With your planet packed in your car/You just move, don’t go far/Starting to spin in your circle again’.
lbum. It is about the desire to escape your life with no escape: ‘With your planet packed in your car/You just move, don’t go far/Starting to spin in your circle again’.
11th track ‘See You Later’: The heavy and slow guitars and the bitter sweet chorus ‘See you later/See you later/If I see you at all’ set the mood for this song. It touches themes present in many of his songs such as addiction, which does not necessarily represent addiction: ‘You got a choke chain/Made out of night train/To keep your memory down’
12th track ‘Half Right’ (hidden track): A very moving melody on guitar and one of these Heatmiser songs that Elliott performed later on, during his solo career. The lyrics are bitter and sad, they seem to be about being helpless when you see someone, a friend, losing his life, losing control of his life. This song has been covered by the band Jimmy Eat World who has named Heatmiser as an important influence.
Jeff Stark from the San Francisco Weekly reviewed one of the last Heatmiser shows in 1996, at the Bottom of the Hill. This is what he wrote:
“Somewhere in the middle of the set the band started goofing off; Gust pushed Smith down in the middle of a song. Later, Heatmiser tossed self-effacing cracks at the audience, perhaps to parody Smith’s reputation for despondence. Between songs bassist Coomes proclaimed, ‘We’ve got Soren Kierkegaard on guitar.’ To which Smith jokingly announced, ‘This one’s called Fear and Trembling.‘ ”
It was a funny exchange but a little bit ironical and said in a mocking tone; you eventually could tell the band was breaking apart.