Day After Day: Sucked Out

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Sucked Out

Sometimes a song just sticks with you. That was the case with Superdrag's "Sucked Out," which was released in March 1996 on the Knoxville band's second album (and first major label release) Regretfully Yours. 

It was a strange time for so-called alternative rock. The grunge thing was sputtering out and rock artists were getting poppier (with the exception of say, Rage Against the Machine). Female artists like Alanis Morissette, the Spice Girls and Fiona Apple were getting more attention, as was hip hop. For me, Beck's Odelay was the big album, melding many different styles into a brilliant follow-up to Mellow Gold (which I wrote about a few days ago).

I was still listening to stations like WFNX, where I first heard "Sucked Out": a punchy power pop blast that repeats its refrain ("Who sucked out the feeling?" although frontman John Davis really works the last word into "FEELIIIIIIING") a zillion times without it getting old. I didn't know anything about Superdrag other than its name was similar to British act Supergrass, who were also gaining some popularity at the time. That wasn't unusual, since the major labels had signed up pretty much every band playing power chords after the Seattle scene blew up a few years earlier. Fortunately, not every band they signed sounded like Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Soundgarden. A closer comparison for Superdrag might be Matthew Sweet or another Seattle act: the Posies. They had the same power pop chops, but Superdrag's sound was a little heavier.

"Sucked Out" got some attention from MTV and rock radio, hitting #17 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and giving Superdrag "one-hit wonder" status with a ton of other bands from the '90s. I don't remember hearing anything else from Regretfully Yours on the radio and I didn't buy the album at the time. They got a bigger recording budget to make their followup, 1998's Head Trip in Every Key, but Elektra felt the album wasn't radio-friendly enough. The band went back in and recorded two more songs, but the label refused to promote the album and cut tour support after six months; like many other bands of that era, Superdrag was dropped soon afterward. I actually remember hearing the first single "Do the Vampire" and thought it was catchy enough, but maybe the suits were looking for them to be more like Sugar Ray or something. Another factor in the album stiffing was the rise of nu-metal, which was catching on with the high school kids. Superdrag was no Limp Bizkit.

I lost track of the band after that. They made two more albums until Davis, who had struggled with alcohol abuse and later found religion, decided he was done in 2003. The band reunited in 2007 and released their fifth and final album in '09. Davis and original lead guitarist Brandon Fisher formed The Lees of Memory in 2013 and have released four albums since. The original Superdrag lineup reunited in 2022 and announced they were in the studio, but Davis later said the album was going to be a solo release instead.

Over the years, thanks to the magic of YouTube, I would watch a video of the band playing "Sucked Out" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in the fall of 1996 and it would remind me how kickass the song was. The first comment always cracked me up: "Ah, the 90. Where four guys who look like they belong at different stages of rock n' roll time space can come together and make one hell of a catchy song."

A few summers ago, I was in a record store going through used CDs and saw Regretfully Yours for $2, and I immediately purchased it. The album is terrific; I have it on my phone and listen to it fairly regularly. I need to dig into the rest of the catalog as well as the Lees of Memory stuff. "Sucked Out" is a good reminder of how one person's one-hit wonder can be another's pathway into so much more.