FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 22, 2024
CONTACT: MIKE MCDERMOTT
mike@watershedcentral.com
WATERSHED TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM, CELEBRATE WITH TWO SHOWS IN COLUMBUS, JUNE 14 AND 15.
On Friday, June 14, and Saturday, June 15, Columbus rock veterans Watershed will celebrate the release of their new full-length album, Blow It Up Before It Breaks, with shows at The Rumba Café. Tickets available here for night #1 and here for night #2. Nashville-based Ricki will open.
Produced by Tim Patalan—who also produced the band’s best-received albums, The More It Hurts, the More It Works and Fifth of July—Blow It Up Before It Breaks marks Watershed’s first new music since their 2020 EP Long Player and their first full-length album since 2012’s Brick and Mortar. Showcasing their aged-for-decades blend of loud guitars, catchy melodies, and clever-enough lyrics, Blow It Up will be pressed on vinyl (with two songs released on a limited-edition cassette, for those of you still driving a rusty Ford Pinto) and available on all streaming services. The album will be released on Tuesday, May 28th. The 12” vinyl will be available in Columbus-area record stores in addition to watershedcentral.com. Digital copies will be available on all the usual streaming platforms.
Formed in 1985 by Colin Gawel (vocals and guitar), Joe Oestreich (vocals and bass), and Herb Schupp (drums) while they were still in high school, Watershed signed with Epic Records in the early nineties. After the release of a live EP and a studio album (1995’s Twister), Epic dropped the band. Many artists would have broken up at that moment, but Watershed—owing to equal parts optimism and stubbornness—found a new drummer (Dave Masica) and kept plowing forward, producing their best work, including the previously mentioned More It Hurts and Fifth of July records, which, thanks to significant airplay on WWCD, cemented their place in the annals of Columbus music.
Watershed’s journey from rock’s minor leagues to the majors and back—and their refusal to call it quits—is the subject of Oestreich’s book Hitless Wonder (2012), which Donald Ray Pollock called “the best and most honest memoir about the thwarted desire for rock stardom that you will ever read.” Oestreich has published three additional nonfiction books, including Lines of Scrimmage (w/Scott Pleasant), Partisans, and Waiting to Derail (w/Thomas O’Keefe, about Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown). He’s currently working on his debut novel, The Transplants, while teaching at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, SC.
For his part, Gawel has been relentlessly performing as both a solo artist and with his backing band The League Bowlers. He also founded the band Why Isn’t Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? while another of his projects, Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine, led to the city of Columbus naming a street Willie Phoenix Way, after the legendary Columbus rocker. He also runs a website called Pencilstorm and works seven days a week at his small shop, Colin’s Coffee.
The band may not log as many miles in the old Econoline as they used to, but they are constantly writing, rehearsing, and playing shows that are meaningful to them, like a recent gig with North Carolina songwriting genius Terry Anderson (“Battleship Chains” and “I Love You Period”).
At the Rumba Café shows, Gawel and Oestreich will be joined on stage by both drummers they’ve played with over the years, Schupp and Masica, along with guitarist Rick Kinsinger and other special guests. Each night will feature a different career-spanning set, with absolutely no repeats. Approximately 50 songs total, spread across the two shows.
