How Tad's Grunge Classic '8-Way Santa' Was Tarnished By Hippies, Pepsi, & the Media

Tad are always known as one of the bands on the second tier of most popular grunge acts, but many feel they deserved even better.  They had an incredibly thick and powerful metallic grunge sound with Tad Doyle singing in a strong tough voice like a rabid sports fan yelling at his favorite team playing on television to stop losing or an army sergeant barking orders.  He, with bassist Kurt Danielson, guitarist Gary Thorstensen and drummer Kevin Wied, fueled up the thunderous tank of sludge, mud, and metal, and drove through the U.S. for a decade, running over most other bands with their heavy power. 

By February 15, 1991, around 35 years ago, when Tad issued ‘8-Way Santa’ for Sub Pop, they were set to hit the big time.  At that junction, the only waves grunge made were primarily underground.  Alice in Chains were able to chart with “Man in the Box” and a couple of other singles off their debut ‘Facelift’ the year before. Immediately, there were problems.  Everything had to be in order, the stars had to align for this hard rock band pitching grunge to the masses to be successful.  One star was Butch Vig, the producer, who was able to harness Tad’s power and get their rambunctious aggressive nature on record- he’d later produce Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins with much success.  But otherwise, the stars did not align. 

First, Pepsi sued the band over the use of their name in Tad’s single, “Jack Pepsi”.  The song is infamously about a trucker who drove a 4x4 across an icy lake to tempt fate.  The single’s artwork used a modified version of the Pepsi logo. They changed the name of the song to "Jack" on the album since the driver drank Jack Daniels whiskey. They had to take the single out of record stores.  Second, the band was sued by the woman on the 8-Way Santa album cover for illegally using the photo for commercial endeavors.  The somewhat risqué photo was of her and a gentlemen from back in the 1960s or 1970s hugging in a living room except that his hand is on her breast.  The albums had to be removed from stores and switched out for new ones with a regular photo of Tad as the album cover. 

All this hindered any progress and momentum for Tad with Sub Pop more concerned with costs for the changes compared to promoting the band.  Sub Pop was not in a good state financially at the time.  

Thirdly, despite decent reviews, Tad’s trucker or lumberjack image was used against the band when MTV gave them only brief coverage because apparently, they weren’t physically appealing and when reading the reviews like this positive review from

‘Entertainment Weekly’.

“It's way past midnight, but he doesn't care: The slovenly, overweight sad sack with nothing to live for barrels down the interstate in his souped-up pickup — zonked out of his mind, blaring rock & roll and aiming to plow down anything and everything in his way. That's the milieu conjured up by the inspired manic roar of Tad, a Seattle grunge band led by slovenly, overweight singer-guitarist Tad Doyle. The characters on 8-Way Santa, the band's third and most coherent album, drive drunkenly into lakes, proudly wear smelly clothes, and mutter things like ''So messed up you can't believe!'' and ''No one touches my kids/Except me!''

Tad doesn't relent on the music, either. Santa is biker rock driven by crushing slabs of guitar potent * enough to kill baby seals at 50 paces. The band pauses for a few airy guitar chords and tosses off a downright poplike chorus or two, but Tad's music is best summed up by one of its lyrics: ''Better not get in my way/Better hide behind your door.'' No problem, dude.”

We get it, Tad Doyle is an overweight slob with nothing to live for according to 'Entertainment Weekly'.  Not the best promotion the band could receive from the popular nationwide entertainment magazine.  With problems involving the album, the single, and MTV, Doyle and company were feeling like they were being blackballed by the entertainment industry.   What they thought were immature jokes, corporate entities thought were art that pushed the limit too far and Tad needed to be lassoed and placed back in their stable. 

Tad were unable to gain success with so many roadblocks in their way so the album and singles didn’t sell, the band gained some recognition but in the end, they remained a popular more on a local level than a national one.  They still were one of the biggest bands to play grunge but the mainstream was not ready to accept them yet.  This was nothing new for grunge bands as most continued to either stay with indie labels or sign with major ones only to see decent to poor sales.  About six months after ‘8-Way Santa’ was released, Nirvana released ‘Nevermind’ and that finally broke the ground grunge needed to make its way into the mainstream.  By doing so, the genre became the latest craze and finally received the adulation it deserved. 

Nirvana did what they could to help Tad, touring with them in the early days and praising them in interviews.  Tad did benefit by getting a spot for the other single, “Jinx” in the movie ‘Singles’ which focused on some of the Seattle bands of the era.  It helped sales some but the album and song were over a year old by then.

Tad never became a really famous band, nor did they ever secure a hit song, but their reputation is still strong to this day and ‘8-Way Santa’ is revered as a fine grunge album.  It ranked #31 on Rolling Stone’s greatest grunge albums of all-time so eventually it did get the recognition for its heavy powerful songs baked with heaviness.