Show Notes
Life in a ‘90s Grunge Band.
Comparing the music world of 1996 to 2026.
It’s 9pm. Friday night. December 20th, 1996. Cape Town, South Africa. I walk out on stage. The air is thick with smoke from the fog machine and cigarettes, and probably something else too. A bright spotlight is in my face. The light’s hot. The weather’s hot. That middle-of-an-African-summer kinda hot. All I can see beyond the spotlight is a sea of people. The venue is sold out. In fact, it’s probably over capacity.
We’re opening for South Africa’s biggest rock band, Springbok Nude Girls, who’d just signed a major label deal with Sony. But my band ROYD wasn’t far behind them, all thanks to the support of legendary DJ Barney Simon, who hosted the only rock show on national radio. His heavy rotation of our debut single led to it climbing up the national rock chart until it reached No. 1 just a few weeks before. To get there, we beat out Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. Recalling this makes it feel like a distant dream, but it was in fact, reality. And I was only a teenager. This was truly a dream come true.
The roar of the crowd intensifies with every step I take towards the microphone. I swing my long hair to the side of my face and pretend I’m about to speak into the mic. The crowd quietens. In this silence, without warning, we launch into the heavy opening riff of our No. 1 single “Impression X”. They. Go. Crazy! The dancefloor instantly erupts into a dangerous (yet friendly) pit of hair-windmills, body-slams, and flying flannel shirts. Welcome to life in the ‘90s.
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Fast forward 29 years to December 2025. I get an email from the bassist, my best friend Rob Krammer, who now lives in Austria: “Dude, we should totally do something special next year to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of our debut release”.
After the initial shock of realizing that three decades had somehow flown by, we decided that it would be awesome to get all our recordings re-mastered and re-released as one epic album. We excitedly emailed the drummer, my brother Tony Holroyd, who now lives in Japan. He’s one of those people who doesn’t show his excitement, though, or maybe he just doesn’t get excited, I don’t know. But after he revealed a sliver of enthusiasm, we knew we were onto a great idea!
ROYD was formed in 1995 (out of the remains of a previous band) and broke up in 1999, when I moved to Los Angeles to study at Musicians Institute. In our four years together, we recorded one demo and four EPs. We went to record at Paris Studios once each year. And no, unfortunately it wasn’t in Paris. That was the name of the owner. But he was great, so we didn’t mind the fact that Paris was just down the road.
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Back to December 2025. So I got in touch with my favourite mastering engineer, Tony Lindgren, over at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden, to see if he was up for the job. He was, and his genius has not only revived these dusty old ‘90s recordings, but he’s masterfully brought them up-to-date with the big, loud, modern music industry, without compromising their old-school character though.
You can hear the results for yourself on Spotify, Apple, or any other streaming platform, just search for ROYD - The ‘90s Recordings. Or if you’d like to download the album for free, then head on over to HackMusicTheory.com/Royd.
ROYD • The ‘90s Recordings Cover art hand-drawn in 1996 by Ben Ludik and his ballpoint pen
So coming back to the title of this post. What was life like in a ‘90s grunge band? In other words, how does the music industry of 30 years ago compare to now?
Instead of focusing on all the obvious things, like recording to tape in the studio, or running a newsletter and fan club using snail mail, or selling CDs at shows, or playing in front of people who were actually looking at us (not their phones), instead of all that, I’m going to focus on the feeling that us musicians felt ab