Tyson Meade

Tyson Meade first gained notice as the frontman for both Defenestration and the Chainsaw Kittens, earning recognition as a singular voice within the alternative scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. His distinctive two-octave warble, melodic yet peculiar phrasing, and off-kilter lyrics continued to find an audience long after that movement faded, extending well into the following decade. Born in 1962 in Bartlesville, a small oil town in northern Oklahoma, he grew up listening to the Beatles, Elvis, and the Supremes. Exposure to punk, new wave, David Bowie, and T. Rex soon pulled him toward more abrasive sounds. During the summer of 1980 he purchased a Gibson Marauder from his brother and assembled the group that evolved into Defenestration alongside several local skateboarders. In 1984 a loan from his mother covered the four-hundred-dollar cost of recording the band’s intense, darkly psychedelic self-titled release, which attracted enough coastal attention to secure a contract with Relativity. The more polished Dali Does Windows appeared in 1987, yet internal friction with co-writer Todd Walker and repeated personnel shifts brought the project to an end the following year.

While employed at an independent record store in Norman, Oklahoma, Meade learned of a high-school band preparing to dismiss its vocalist. With few alternatives, he auditioned and joined, christening the new ensemble the Chainsaw Kittens—a nod to the guitarist’s abrasive tone and the players’ youth. After issuing the dark, glammy single “Mother (Of the Ancient Birth)” in 1990, the group delivered Violent Religion, which carried the single’s theatrical and androgynous aesthetic further while examining homoerotic and religious subjects; the back cover showed Meade in full drag. The harder-edged Flipped Out in Singapore and the stylistically uneven Angel on the Range EP followed a year apart, each featuring different rhythm sections. By the time the band recorded 1994’s Atlantic-distributed Pop Heiress, greater resources and lineup stability were finally in place, yet Mammoth withdrew its backing shortly after release. In 1995 the group signed with Chicago’s Scratchie Records and Meade issued his largely acoustic solo debut Motorcycle Childhood, the first of his recordings to address his sexuality and rural Oklahoma roots directly. The poppy, wistful Candy for You EP of 1996 signaled a new direction, and the full-length Chainsaw Kittens that October continued the shift toward brighter material. Following Scratchie’s reorganization, the band moved to the Four Alarm label in 1999 and released the straightforward pop album The All American in fall 2000. At that point Meade resided in New York City and had begun planning a second solo project.