In the mid-to-late 90s, Soul Coughing was an up-and-coming act that played a unique blend of alternative rock, electronic music, and hip hop. Soul Coughing was formed in New York City by vocalist and guitarist Mike Doughty in 1992, who was an aspiring music critic and poet at the time.
“The mecca for avant garde experimentation.” – Spin magazine
During his early career Doughty worked as a doorman at The Knitting Factory, a club that Spin magazine referred to as “the mecca for avant garde experimentation.”
It was at the Knitting Factory where Doughty showcased his distinctive spoken word poetry, and others soon took notice. To flesh out his new project, Doughty recruited keyboardist Mark Degli Antoni and bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and Israeli-born drummer Yuval Gabay, all three of whom were regulars of the club.
Doughty was significantly younger than his new bandmates and he barely knew these people which would later lead to problems down the road.
Soul Coughing Relies on Unconventional Instrumentation
Soul Coughing would rely on unconventional instrumentation including a guitar, a sampler, an acoustic bass and drums to create the music that blended jazz, hip-hop, indie rock and noise experimentation.
The band’s songwriting style differed from other groups at the time. Mark Degli Antoni told Billboard, “We’re not one of those bands who sits down to write and the thing is in stone after a week. We write music together and flesh it out in performance. Until it gets to that point where it may take 10 to 15 performances, it’s not really fleshed out.”
Those attending Soul Coughing’s live gigs never knew what they were in store for. Some gigs would have them playing completely brand new songs that weren’t recorded yet, while other gigs may have them playing fan favourites.
With the rising popularity and accessibility of the internet, Soul Coughing took advantage of technology, as the band openly encouraged bootlegging of their concerts. Bootleg tapes would be openly traded on a folder dedicated to the band on America Online, something which Doughty himself would take part in.
Soul Coughing Signs with Slash Records
In just one year, the band would be signed to Slash Records. By this point, the label had soon become part of Warner Brothers, giving the band much-needed mainstream exposure.
The band’s first album, Ruby Vroom, was recorded in 1994 at Sunset Studio Factory in LA. Once Ruby Vroom was released, it failed to chart and sold quite poorly.
Ruby Vroom moved less than 100,000 copies in the next few years, but it received critical acclaim. Rolling Stone later called it one of the 40 best mainstream alternative albums of 1994, as well as one of the 100 greatest albums of the 90s.
“The band is mining turf that no one else is mining.” – Product manager at Warner Brothers
Despite the band’s underwhelming debut, their label had faith in them. The product manager for Soul Coughing for Warner Brothers would tell Billboard magazine a few years later, “We were not satisfied with the 70,000 records sold and we will not be satisfied until we reach a greater goal. The band is mining turf that no one else is mining.”
The product manager would go on to say that the biggest realization they had about Soul Coughing is that the group was capable of being paired up with a variety of artists on the road including Jeff Buckley and the Dave Matthews Band, only further helping bolster their profile.
“I think the only idea that was present before Soul Coughing started was that it was going to be funky.” – Mike Doughty
In 1995, during an appearance on The New Music, Doughty offered some more insight into Soul Coughing’s music, “It was entirely an accident. I think the only idea that was present before Soul Coughing started was that it was going to be funky. Beyond that, it’s been sort of ‘anything goes’, and over time, it became very closely related to who we are as people, and how our particular personalities interact.”
“We try to relate to the lower part of the body – have people shake their booty, dance, and just feel good.” – Yuval Gabay
Yuval Gabay would add, “We try to relate to the lower part of the body – have people shake their booty, dance, and just feel good.”
When asked what role the band’s lyrics play while their music is based on movement, Doughty expanded further, “In the nature of language, each word evokes a tremendous amount of things for specific people. What these words are about, more than getting across a narrative or expressing an idea, is just getting the rhythmic or musical quality of a word into people’s minds, so that it loops over and over again, and then whatever it means to them, comes to the front of their mind.”
The same year, Soul Coughing started working on their follow-up album, Irresistible Bliss, a record whose main theme consisted of love and heartbreak. Doughty’s goal was for the album to have a more contemporary feel and feature catchier, more conventional song structures.
Irresistible Bliss was recorded in only 11 days and was released in 1996. While the album was less favored by critics, it ended up performing much better commercially than its predecessor. Its opening track, “Super Bon Bon,” gave the band their first hit.
“You have to know how to hold back sometimes.” – Yuval Gabay
Yuval Gabay would tell the Morning Call newspaper, “The second record, as usual, is the toughest record to make for a band. And it was indeed a tough record to make. We all bring a big sack of puppies with us. Sometimes you have to know not to let a certain puppy out. You have to know how to hold back sometimes.”
By the late 90s, the band was touring with Drum N’ Bass producers, Krust and Die, and so their third and final album, El Oso, would feature a sound heavily influenced by electronic music.
“You can hear amazing music one night that you’ll never hear again.” – Mike Doughty
During this time, Doughty was spending a lot more time in the UK. He told Billboard magazine, “Dance culture over there is a lot more interesting than all the post grunge anthems on US radio. In London clubs, it’s all about ecstasy, the moment and crazy beats. You can hear amazing music one night that you’ll never hear again. The only similar situation at home is with bands like Phish and all the hippies at the shows getting effed up and dancing around.”
The third album was released in 1998. Reviews for the record were mixed, but it made the Billboard top 50, and included “Circles”, their biggest single yet, which peaked at No. 8 on the US Alternative charts.
Soul Coughing Disbands Following Mark Degli Antoni Departure
It seemed as though Soul Coughing were on their way to the bigtime, but Mark Degli Antoni left the band to focus on family, and rather than continue on, the band called it quits in May of 2000.
Following Soul Coughing’s dissolution, bassist Sebastian Steinberg and drummer Yuval Gabay took up session work, while Antoni saw success as a composer. Mike Doughty’s transition would be rough, as he’d grown disenchanted and developed an addiction to various drugs, and alcohol.
Doughty started a solo career on his own after being dropped by Warner Brothers, selling his debut album, Skittish, on blank CD-Rs, while touring for several years in a rental car. By the time he released his third solo album in 2003, Rockity Roll, he’d gained enough of a following independently of Soul Coughing.
The following year, after playing the Bonnaroo Music Festival, Mike Doughty met up with Dave Matthews, who he’d toured previously with while in Soul Coughing. He gave Matthews a rough cut of a solo album that he’d been working on. After a few further connections, they released the album on Matthews’ label, ATO Records.
The album’s singles, “Looking at the Wind from The Bottom of A Well” and “I Hear the Bells” were featured on the shows Grey’s Anatomy and Veronica Mars, and Doughty found his way back into the mainstream following an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.
“An abusive marriage full of emotional violence.” – Mike Doughty
While outside musical projects were given as the reason for Soul Coughing breaking up in 2000, it went deeper than that according to Doughty. In his book, The Book of Drugs, he referred to the band as “an abusive marriage full of emotional violence.”
Doughty would tell the Village Voice in 2009, “I get more and more afraid that a Soul Coughing reunion is going to be forced upon me at knifepoint. I don’t need money that bad. I swear to God.”
He would reveal that Soul Coughing really didn’t make any money during the time they were together and as a solo artist, he’s actually doing better financially.
“Soul Coughing was this weird universe–sort of a Dante’s Inferno, where I was the devil’s asshole, and there was the band, the management, the record company, and everybody hated me.” – Mike Doughty
In the same interview with Village Voice he stated, “I was very dumb hanging out with those guys, because they just didn’t like me from the jump. They were very cruel to me in a lot of ways, put me down in a big way, and I believed them.
I was 23 when I started the band, and they were in their 30s. I thought they must be smarter than I am, they must be right, the whole reason this is taking off is because of them. We found all these terrible people we worked with that were essentially like those guys. Soul Coughing was this weird universe–sort of a Dante’s Inferno, where I was the devil’s asshole, and there was the band, the management, the record company, and everybody hated me.”
As recently as February of 2021, Doughty revealed he wanted Soul Coughing to get back together, and for his latest project, Ghost of Vroom, to serve as a companion album for their potential comeback. Even though he’d been on good terms with Sebastian Steinberg, the rest of the band didn’t seem interested.
“The possibility of a reunion was pretty quickly eliminated.” – Mike Doughty
Doughty told tCommercial Appeal, “I actually wrote Ghost of Vroom for Soul Coughing, but honestly, I got back a hot plate of crazy. I guess I was expecting that when I went to them. The possibility of a reunion was pretty quickly eliminated.”
Doughty has continued Ghost of Vroom as a standalone band with collaborator Andrew “Scrap” Livingston.
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