Storm Static Sleep: A Pathway Through Post Rock

by Jack Chuter

I want to ask Hampson what happened in the mid-90s to cause this particular wave of post-rock to fizzle out. Disco Inferno broke up because of mounting commercial pressures and insufficient record sales. Pram and Main both had to part ways with labels because they weren’t shifting enough units. Hampson broaches the topic before I do. “What was basically the death knell of independent music was all of this Sub Pop shit,” he says, making no effort to conceal his vitriol. “There were all of these bar bands doing this sub-Black Sabbath bluesy shit. That exploded across the world and took away any kind of experimental nature. Suddenly rock was rock again. No one’s ever going to be able to tell me that Nirvana and Soundgarden were experimental. Sorry, but no. Again, they had their place but it’s another fucking scene. Record companies were falling over themselves to sign anything that came two yards from the Seattle border. It was just boring. I really hope there were people going ‘I don’t like this – I want to buy a Disco Inferno record.’”