Elmore's world People talk about Elizabeth Elmore – do you think she gives a damn?

By Jimmy Draper

SMOKING A CIGARETTE in her Wicker Park apartment hours after the through-the-night drive that concluded her recent East Coast tour, Chicago's Elizabeth Elmore is explaining the story behind the name of her new band. "Amongst certain people in the music scene, there's been endless speculation about my sex life ... that I'm a slut, who I've fucked, that I got shows because I gave the promoters of the shows blow jobs," she says, sounding both annoyed and amused by such absurdly sexist slander. "I laughed, though, because I heard that stuff and thought no one would actually believe it. But no, a lot of people took it as gospel." Elmore's self-consciously clever response was to dub her latest project the Reputation as a "personal little 'fuck you' " to the Windy City's indie rock shit-talkers. Not surprising, either, considering that in her previous band – late-'90s Fastbacks-styled pep-punk trio Sarge – the singer-guitarist never shied away from confronting the fucked-up ways in which people get tangled in webs of miscommunication and manipulation. "I hate the way we talk as if there was nothing really important to say," she spouted on that band's "Stall" like a mile-a-minute reality check, insightfully and incisively cutting through the she-said-he-said bullshit with a frankness that was both refreshing and rare. "But I think that this could turn out fine if I shut up and let things be OK." Keeping mum, however, isn't Elmore's forte. "I'm not very good at not saying things I'm not supposed to say," she says, laughing, in reference to her other reputation, as one of indie rock's most scathingly honest and direct songwriters. Which is why, at least with the Reputation's self-titled debut, she won't be making new friends or amends with those whose egos she bruised in Sarge. On that forthcoming, so-great-it's-shocking album of power pop and emo arena rock, Elmore takes aim at deceptive exes, fair-weather friends, and Chicago's indie rock elitism with such contemptuousness that there's no way she's playing for popularity. "My bluntness makes people uncomfortable," she continues between hurried drags off her cigarette. "Or maybe not uncomfortable, but it just makes me not always welcome as a part of conversations – and that's fine." After moving to Champaign to attend the University of Illinois in the mid '90s, Elmore found herself enamored with the college town's then thriving rock scene. "It was really intimidating when I moved there and people would look through me every night," she says. "But when I got to know people, it was a really, really great place." A friend introduced her to bassist Rachel Switzky, whose previous band Corndolly had shared stages with Heavens to Betsy and Bratmobile, and the two started playing together. "It just happened," she says of Sarge's inception. "Rachel knew how to record demos and book shows, then Parasol Records heard our demos and called us ... we worked really hard, it wasn't easy, but I still look back and think, 'How the hell did I end up in a band?' " In 1996 the band released Charcoal and began building a devoted following through incessant, DIY touring. It wasn't until The Glass Intact two years later, however, that Sarge exploded – both artistically and critically – showing up in the pages of high-profile industry rags like Interview and Rolling Stone. "I love the fact that we got press, but I felt uncomfortable because I knew what [the Champaign scene was] saying about me," Elmore, who was 22 at the time, admits. "I always wanted the respect of my immediate peers a lot more than I cared about critics, and it made me really angry that suddenly guys [from Champaign] started getting really standoffish and saying shit." That August, Elmore relocated to Chicago to attend Northwestern Law School and begin work on Sarge's highly anticipated third album. "A lot of people here knew my band and thought we were a lot bigger than we were because of all the press. That made me a very popular girl my first year here," she says of everyone who befriended her when she arrived. "And I was stupid enough to think it was about me – it wasn't." Which became abundantly clear when Sarge broke up in December 1999, and suddenly Elmore's newfound friends disappeared. "I had all these friends who came to every show Sarge played in Chicago for the past year and a half, and literally I would say 90 percent of those people have never come to see me play since [Sarge's breakup]. It's almost shocking how bad it was." Elmore threw herself into her studies and kept writing new material. She also performed solo around town and in 2001 released the six-minute ballad "You Blink" under her own name on a split single with Braid's Bob Nanna. Even so, she never planned to pursue a solo career. "I definitely write songs hearing a band in my head," she says. "Plus I wanna be a band. If it was just me, my name, and my picture in the features and write-ups, I'd still be happy, but being happy by yourself isn't as fun as being happy with a group of people." That group finally came together last fall, when Elmore enlisted bassist Joel Root, guitarist Sean Hulet, and former Sarge drummer Chad Romanski (since replaced by Kent Stewart) to round out the Reputation. Recorded during the final five weeks of '01 and featuring appearances from members of Wilco, June of 44, and the Alkaline Trio, The Reputation isn't a departure from the sounds and styles of Sarge so much as a more complexly arranged and fully realized extension of that band's music. Horns and piano figure more prominently, and Elmore has subtly relaxed the tongue-twisting pace of her vocal delivery. Thankfully, though, she still refuses to sugarcoat her sentiments. The 10-track album (originally, and aptly, titled The Uselessness of Friends) includes nine originals and a cover of Elvis Costello's "Almost Blue," and it documents in short story-like detail Elmore's post-Sarge life in Chicago, which she describes as "a real toughens-you-up experience." It's not surprising, then, that The Reputation is steelier, stronger, and even more brutally blunt than anything Elmore's previously released. "There's definitely an undercurrent [on the album] of 'OK, see you later, have a nice life. I'm going ahead on my own now,' " she says. "It was a weird period, not a totally pleasant period." That theme shows up on nearly every track, from her unflinching looks at unfulfilling love ("For the Win," "She Turned Your Head ...") to the incriminating portraits of the Windy City rock scene ("The Stars of Amateur Hour," "This Town"). It's those anti-Chicago songs that will probably put Elmore in the hot seat, at least at home – for dishing out sarcastic diatribes like "Your little scenes play out in bars / Well welcome to the grown-up world." Not that she's worried what her immediate peers will think anymore. "It took three and a half years, but I finally feel OK here. And now I don't fuckin' care what anyone says," she tells me matter-of-factly as we wrap up the interview. "Because, you know, they're just gonna say it anyway." And, of course, so will she.