When I was 20 years old, I finally got the hell off the iron range (northern Minnesota), and moved to the hometown of my favorite band, the Replacements. I had been dreaming of this for many years, thinking how great it was, having a music MECCA right here in my home state. For about five years prior to this big move, I was playing shitty covers in a crappy high school band called the Imports. We had about twenty original numbers with that band, and we all wanted to move down to "da cities" and become rock and roll stars. We had no idea what we were getting into.

I moved first, then the drummer, then the bass player (Russell Bergum), and eventually, the KEYBOARD player (Jim Kennedy). Our first gig was at FERNANDO'S on 15th and Lake Street. What a disaster. What a let-down. Then we played NEW BAND NIGHT at the 7th St. Entry, where future rock luminary Ed Ackerson was our soundman. Ed LOVED us! We were IN!!! Then, some things happened. It was like that Bryan Adams song--Jimmy quit, Timmy got married. I shoulda known we'd never get far... Well, I was glad that band ended. We SUCKED, and I didn't like trying to write ART ROCK. My next move was to become a SOLO ACOUSTIC performer, and try the coffee house circuit.

My first gig doing that was at the Gioco cafe, in Dinkytown (later renamed Espresso Royale). Jay Hurley, of Landing Gear, (then of the Sedgewicks) was the booking guy. He still works there, although since we ruined it, they don't have live music anymore.

The "show" was pretty good, and some of my friends came to see me play. Two of the friends were Russell Bergum (the ex-Imports bass player, who was all new wave), and my brother, Glen. Glen had graduated fom high school a few days before. I was at the graduation ceremony and party and while at home, I saw Glen and our dad come close to kicking the shit out of each other. I said, "Glen,when I go back to da cities, why don't you come with me." He did. Anyway, back to the Gioco cafe. After I played, Russell expressed interest in playing his stand-up bass that he stole from high school with me on some songs. I said "sure, why not. We're NOT gonna play no NEW WAVE, though. We're gonna play what I want to play." Then later that night, Glen expressed interest in playing some percussion with Russell and I. He said, "We'll call ourselves the Glen-Russells, with a 't'." The Glenrustles were born. We had no idea what we were getting into.

Well, Glen got himself a snare drum with his graduation money, and took two twigs and fastened a tambourine to it, then took a coat hanger and fastened a pot lid (no pun intended) to it and attached that to the snare drum. Then we found some maracas. Glen had his drum kit. At this point, he was playing with sticks cut from our back yard. We lived in Columbia Heights, north of Minneapolis. It was the summer of '88. We were smoking a lot of grass (NOT RUSSELL) and writing tons of tunes. We practiced three times a week. It was a new sound.

On September 25, 1988 we had our first gig as "Rich Mattson ad the Glenrustles". It was at the Gioco cafe. Then we played the New Band Night again, the Uptown Bar, and worked on recording an ALBUM. In November, '88 (sometime around there) Glen and I found a house on 28th & Harriet, in the UPTOWN neighborhood (where all the cool musicians lived). It was awesome. The basement was like a concert hall. We had neighbors only on one side, and they were MUSICIANS, TOO! We got two roomates, one of them being Jim Kennedy (the old Imports keyboard player), and the other a bass player named Jimmy the Sloocher. Jim Kennedy learned how to play guitar over the few months since the Imports broke up, and genius that he is, decided to join our band, and play guitar, banjo, piano, and fiddle. The only one he COULDN'T play was the fiddle. He returned it to the music store the next day.

We set up the "studio" (my 4-track) in the living room and recorded our debut ALBUM in one night. It turned out to be a nine song cassette. All we ever wanted was to be on TWIN/TONE. That never happened, but that's another story. We dubbed those cassettes in my room, one after the other until we had 200 of them. We even got our name in the City Pages.

We kept after gigs, playing goofy places like the Valli Pub (a pizza place), Fernando's, the Seward Cafe, eventually getting into the 400Bar, and the Cabooze. Our main venue, though, was that basement. We had parties, parties, PARTIES!!! Every other weekend, at least. The strangest mix of people showed up; punkers, deadheads, skinheads, cokeheads, metalheads, you name it, they were represented. Nothing bad ever happened, (save for the time "Baggs" shit his pants on the stairs) and nothing ever got stolen or broken--nothing we cared about, anyway. Those were strange days, indeed. We built up our eclectic following that still comes around to this day, some ten years later.

Early in '90, Russell announced that he was moving to Chicago. I was a little upset, but not much because Russ was always studying and way more into school. He wasn't a dope-smoking moron like the rest of us. The big problem was finding a replacement. Also right about this time Jimmy K. decided to finish school in Bemidji, so he too was leaving. Now I was worried.

Glen was working at the Leaning Tower of Pizza with Greg McAloon, who said he played bass and guitar. It took about a month to get him into the basement to jam with us, but when he finally did, we had a new sound. It was good. Glen had been practicing on a full kit that we bought for $50 from some hippy. I rediscovered my old Gretsch guitar and Peavey/Plush amp combo. We decided, somehow, to "plug in", as it were. All of a sudden we were an electric 3-piece rock group. We instantly recorded another ALBUM at Leo Whitebird's studio across the street, and went to work dubbing those tapes. The gigs were starting to roll in. We still played our parties, too, although our house was slowly turning into a total shit-hole.

Something dawned on me in early 1991, after recording our third ALBUM with Tim Mac at his 6 Feet Under studio (we actually had those tapes professionally dubbed! Lost the DAT master in the process, tho). I realised--hey, there's clubs in every town, all across the USA, even outside the USA, where we can play!!! Sounds silly, but I suppose my rural upbringing kept my world a little smaller than most peoples'. We had the van, we had the demo tapes, we even had a little press from our hometown--what were we waiting for?

Our first couple of "tours" were to Chicago and back, with our friends DOG-994-some of the craziest mutherfuckers in Minneapolis rock history. I can't say (remember) much about the tours, except that we didn't make any money--I mean we DIDN'T MAKE ANY- you know how some people say they didn't make any money, yet they got paid $25? Well, we didn't make ANY money. In seven shows, I'd have to say we performed to about 25 people, half of which were club employees. Sound bad? Hell no!! It was a kick in the ASS!! We had a great time. We were young, stupid, and drunk. We went back and did it again, countless times. Touring is now what we call an "excercise in futility". We've met some great people and bands on the road, and some awful people and bands, too. Most of all, we have fun. God, there's some pathetic road stories in the Glenrustles. Just amazing. No label support, no radio support, no guarantees, just the bond of friendship, and ROCK AND ROLL. Ah, memories--Glen laying face-down in some park in Chicago, going to the Western Union in some godawful neighborhood in New Orleans, sleeping in the van in January outside Madison, the sound of Jimmy puking...all the glory of rock superstardom. We eventually did start to get paid for our roadtrips, but it's never quite like being home in Minneapolis, where we were beginning to pack 'em in...

Anyway, where was I? So we were a 3-piece power trio for most of '91 and some of '92, until Jimmy Kennedy came back from Bemidji with his business degree. He re-joined the band, now playig guitar full-time. We recorded and released a couple singles that year, and sent out a lot of demo tapes to big time record labels. Twin/Tone was floundering, and we didn't even want to be on that label anymore.

Glen had started his own band, called the Peasants sometime in '92, and the house on Harriet was abandoned, and we were practicing in my new basement, a couple blocks from the old party house. The new basement was smaller, and had two rooms in it, and I decided to make it into a recording studio. I took out a loan from my Grandad and bought a 12-track recording/mixing machine and went to work full-time recording friends' bands. Flowerpot was born. We recorded a lot of tunes that never got released in any form, save for the errant demo type tape floated out to those stupid record labels.

In April of '94 we did another tour to Chicago and back when things got a little too crazy. Glen was trying to drive the whole band insane. He wanted me to kick his ass. On the way to Milwaukee we decided, after almost leaving him at the Wendy's Oasis, that he should leave the band. We went to Milwaukee and Glen chanted "DAHMER, DAHMER, DAHMER" the whole time. We stuck to our decision.

Upon returning to Minneapolis, we started auditioning drummers, and settled on our good friend Rob Gilboe. Now there wasn't a Glen or a Russell in the Glenrustles. It never occured to us to change the name...we were too famous.

With Robbie in the band, we decided to save all our gig money and make the ultimate ALBUM, and make c.d.'s. In late '94 we went into the Third Ear Recording complex and began recording what would become BROOD, our first "real" ALBUM, with Tom Herbers producing. It took about a year to record the whole thing, as we spread out the recording dates (so we could pay as we went), and make it the perfect ALBUM. We still played our usual two to three gigs a month local, with a road trip once a month, to Duluth, LaCrosse, or Chicago.

Once BROOD was completed, we sent out a lot of tapes, thinking "of course we'll get that record deal now!". We didn't, and we put it out on our own SMA Records. I've got a kickass collection of rejection letters if anyone would like to see 'em. It's kinda funny. Well, BROOD went over like gangbusters and we paid off the manufacturing costs in 2 months. Local papers gave it nice reviews, and it was good to get some recognition, for a change. The national reviews were kind of luke warm, though, so we went right to work on the next ALBUM. This time I took all I learned from Tom Herbers and recorded the whole thing at my own studio. We stretched the recordings out over a year, recording songs as they came, over the winter of '95 and spring of '96. Those were tough times for me, personally, and it shows in the writing. The band was kicking holy ass live, and packing rooms all over town. We even made some waves in Chicago, by now. Yet with all our ass-kicking and half-assed promotional efforts, nobody would touch us in the business. We couln't find a booker, we couldn't find a label, we coudn't even find a manager, let alone someone to sell t-shirts. I was becoming bitter. And maybe even (God forbid!) a little jaded. In Stone, the second ALBUM came out in the summer of '96. To this day it remains some of our biggest supporters' favorite. Jim Meyer wrote an incredibly good review of it in the Star-Tribune, and it was nominated for "best rock album" at the Minnesota Music Awards. Over the next year, big changes would take place in the Glenrustles' camp...

Robbie decided, over much brainstorming and inner turmoil, that he didn't want to be in a band anymore. It was nothing personal, he just had to "get on with his life". So, weighing my options, which were A)start a whole new band, or B)just get another drummer, I decided to check out the latter first. Glen was first to volunteer his services. I was surprised and tentative about it at first, then said, "what the heck?" Since leaving the band, Glen and I had become better friends, better brothers, and we'd both GROWN UP a little. Glen was finally getting over the fact that Kurt Cobain was dead. Also, Jimmy Kennedy was seeming less and less interested in what rock and roll had to offer him. He had become more interested in playing jazz piano, something he had done since I "discovered" him playing Floyd Cramer in his parents' basement. This was Jim's true calling, I figured, and I didn't call him when Greg and I went on to practice with Glen on drums again.

So now we were back to the old POWER TRIO, and it felt good, kinda. I didn't like having to cover all the guitar parts and singing too. I'm no Jimi Hendrix. I don't know how I ever did it. Things were different now.

We kept recording, all through the changes, and never stopped gigging. We did some shows as a three-piece, after one Graham Gregorich, an old aquaintence from the 'range, said how he'd LOVE to play guitar with us. After one particularily disastrous night, I gave him a call. I made him two cassettes of songs to learn, and within a week he had them all LEARNED. We had a new sound. It was good. To wipe the slate clean, a third ALBUM, Fire At Night, was released in December '97. This album consisted of stuff we recorded with Rob & Jim and some with Glen. Some of the songs Glen played drums on were recorded the night he re-joined the band, and he thought they would be "just demos". A couple other songs were recorded with our friend Leo Kuelbs on drums, and a couple more didn't even have any other Glenrustles on them at all. Only one song, "Whole Lotta Nothing", has the entire new lineup on it: Me, Greg, Glen, and Graham.

So, Fire At Night came out in the midst of the Christmas season, in 1997, and was virtually ignored by all the press. Big deal. Time will tell. I still think it's a great ALBUM.

Throughout '98 we re-formed the Glenrustles with our new guitar player, wrote a whole bunch of new songs, recorded 'em, logged in around 65 gigs, and looked at our happy, friendly place at the bottom of the rock HEAP. Things are great here--you wouldn't believe the shit we get away with.

Rocking into the next millenium, Minneapolis' favorite underdogs,
Rich Mattson and the GLENRUSTLES