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Pale Divine, one of St. Louis’ most-popular alternative rock acts of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, is set to return this June for a third reunion. Once again, the group will perform at The Pageant, this time on Saturday, June 29. After twice reuniting on Monday nights around the winter holidays, vocalist Michael Schaerer says the band is looking forward to its first concert together since December 2009, and doing so during a less-intense time of the year.
“We’re all pretty much ready to jam and enjoy ourselves,” says Schaerer. “We’ve been looking for a date for a bit, working around different schedules. Richard (Fortus) is in town for a while, and we were able to work out the date of June 29, a Saturday night. There’s been no reason not to do it, except for Richard being one of the busiest guys in the music business. We’re all still good friends. Maybe a little dramatic, at times, but even that’s been in good fun, too.
“People have been expecting this,” he adds, “and we’re totally jazzed to do it. Tickets have been selling pretty well. With the Christmas season being so jam-packed with reunions and cover acts, we wanted to do something smack-dab in the middle of summer. Both of the other shows were on Mondays, around the El Monstero shows, which was a tough scenario for drawing a full house. Even so, those two were fun to get together.”
As mentioned, Fortus’ work has been prolific over the past two decades, with full-time membership in groups such as Guns n’ Roses, Thin Lizzy, and the Psychedelic Furs. Mixed in has been session and live work with everyone from Rhianna to Nena. Right now, he’s joined the group Dead Daisies, who are on an Australian tour in support of Aerosmith.
With Fortus out-of-pocket for the better chunk of the next month, Schaerer will be rehearsing with the group’s solid rhythm section: bassist Dan Angenend Jr., and drummer Greg Miller. During this process, the trio, with input from Fortus, will hash out the band’s June set list. Schaerer says that the group’s looking back to their days at Kennedy’s 2nd Street Company for some of the inspiration.
“There will be a couple of surprises,” he suggests. “We’re in the process of putting all that together. We’ll do songs off the record (Straight to Goodbye), along with demos from the second record, and a few covers. Maybe we’ll play some originals that we didn’t do in the past reunions, too. I think all that stuff came off pretty well, though I think the heavier material was a little more effective, which it always is in that sort of setting. We’re probably going to break it down right in the middle and play purely acoustic, just Richard and I with our guitars. Back when we did four nights (in a row) at Kennedy’s, that’s what we’d do on Thursday nights, just to keep it from getting so boring. So we have a history of doing that, and we’ll be getting songs together just for that part.”
Another bit of tradition has been for the group to pull together reunion sets from its opening bands, something that Schaerer says will occur again this year. (In the interests of disclosure, this writer also took part in the past two shows, deejaying before and between acts.) There are, as one would guess, a variety of names under consideration for an opening slot, or two, this summer.
“In the past,” Schaerer says, “we had The Nukes and the Stranded Lads. We’ve got a lot of great bands that would like to do it. And we’ve heard some really good suggestions.”
Between now and showtime, there’s also a matter of piecing together the full stage show, which Schaerer feels is coming together well. For example, the group’s hired the well-regarded lighting designer Chip Self to import “an ass-kicking light show.” While all that work can come together without Fortus as an in-town participant, Schaerer notes that the world is a very different place for a reuniting band in 2013.
“It’s totally different, dude,” he says. “We didn’t have e-mail when we were in the band. We didn’t have mobile phones when we were doing this as kids. Nowadays, you don’t have to stress about trying to reach someone and missing a call.”
In total, Schaerer says that the night’s focus is purely tied to that night’s gig, not in trying to fully reboot a career. It’s a mid-summer celebration for band and fans, alike.
“It should be a lot of fun,” he says. “And people have been wanting to see it. So we’re going to get together and enjoy every minute along the way.”
Pale Divine, Saturday, June 29, 8 p.m. $25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar, 314-726-6161, thepageant.com.
