Grassroots by 311

Grassroots, 311's second album, dropped on Capricorn on July 12, 1994, and it sounds like exactly what it is: five guys from Omaha holed up in a little house in Van Nuys, living together and making a record on their own terms. They started out with producer Eddy Offord but split with him early, the money was cut off, and the band finished the job themselves at home, chasing a deliberately muddy tone.

Nick Hexum and SA Martinez trade vocals, with Martinez on turntables too, while P-Nut, playing a five-string Warwick bass on record for the first time, and Chad Sexton lock down the grooves under Tim Mahoney's guitar. "Homebrew" and "8:16 A.M." live here, and so does "Applied Science", which became a fixture of their shows, complete with a drum solo the whole band has joined in on since 2000. Sales were moderate at first, but it went gold in 1999.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.