![\"Urge](\"https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2026\/09\/Main-1-1024x664.jpg\")
IN LATE 1991, JUST AS SMELLS like teen spirit was lighting a fire under the world, Nirvana toured the US and Europe with a band from Chicago called Urge Overkill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kurt Cobain was a fan. Urge\u2019s third album, The Supersonic Storybook<\/em>, fulfilled many of his Credit in here sonic criteria: intense punk squall and classic rock riffs, vocals laced with hurt, an unironic pop sensibility (the cover version of Hot Chocolate\u2019s Emma), and the hallmark visceral punch of engineer Steve Albini. Doubtless Kurt appreciated the carpe diem<\/em> imperative of album opener the kids are insane: \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta live your life by Saturday\/Or remain just another american tragedy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Cobain was equally taken with the trio\u2019s subversive visual aesthetic, a uniform display of vainglorious pseudo-sophistication, featuring monogrammed lounge-suits and \u2018uO\u2019 medallions. They swapped their real names for Vegas-ready alter egos: Nathan Katruud (guitar, vocals) answered to \u2018national (or \u2018nash\u2019) kato\u2019; Ed Roeser (guitar, bass, vocals) was \u2018king\u2019; John Rowan (drums) became \u2018Black ie Onassis\u2019. Before embarking on shoestring-budget tours, they would \u2018rehearse\u2019 by drinking cocktails in their van. Amid the studied blue-collar authenticity of their peers, Urge Overkill were Regency dandies satirising rock stardom, safe in the knowledge that anyone playing music this ragged would never get rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then nirvana changed everything. Following their tourmates to Geffen, Urge made two albums on major league budgets. 1993\u2019s celebratory Saturation<\/em>\u2026 sold well; 1995\u2019s desolate Exit The Dragon<\/em> tanked. In between, their cover version of Neil Diamond\u2019s Girl, You\u2019ll Be a Woman soon soundtracked the Uma Thurman OD sequence in Quentin Tarantino\u2019s Pulp Fiction and became a hit single, but it couldn\u2019t prevent Urge Overkill splitting in 1996 amid a toxic swirl of excess. The demarcation between veneer and reality in Urge\u2019s world blurred beyond caricature at a party thrown by Al Jourgensen, the diminutive don of Chicago\u2019s industrial scene, where Kato hoovered up a cable of powder he thought was cocaine. \u201cI rationalised, \u2018Well, it would never be that big if it was heroin\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Kato regained consciousness, one life-saving shot of adrenaline later, he was lying on a gurney, covered in a blanket. Staring at him sadly was Roeser, his by-now estranged bandmate. \u201cMe and Nash weren\u2019t on speaking terms any more, but i got the call to come to the hospital. There he was. the nurse told me, \u2018this guy, he almost died.\u2019 Nash almost went out in the most inopportune way\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n IT\u2019S FITTING THAT URGE OWE THEIR CELLULOID immortality to a scene featuring John Travolta, a quintessential male icon of a \u201970s fondly referenced by UO\u2019s gaudy thrift store outfits and their music\u2019s embrace of star-spangled hard rock like Cheap Trick. This audio-visual fusion derived from two contrasting midwestern upbringings. Son of a Lutheran choral music specialist, thanks to his father\u2019s church, Nathan Katruud grew up in predominantly black South Minneapolis. His older brother was a Central High School contemporary of Prince. \u201cRock was not spoken in my household,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was all P-Funk and jazz and nothing in between. All the bands I grew up with had suits, like James Brown, or at least cool stage threads. It\u2019s called showbiz. It worked for the Beatles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Northwestern University in Chicago, Katruud met Lyle Preslar, who had just left Minor Threat, and a journalism student from Montana named Steve Albini. \u201cBetween them, I got a crash-course in punk rock: Black Flag, the Damned. Then Ed gave me a crash-course in classic rock: Zeppelin, the Stones\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eighteen months Katruud\u2019s junior, Edward Roeser grew up in Litchfield, textbook agricultural Minnesota, where the only antidotes to small-town monotony were sport and the marching band. \u201cThe Replacements and H\u00fcsker D\u00fc were thriving 70 miles to the east,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I was stuck in the cornfields. I didn\u2019t find out about that stuff until I hooked up with Nash and Steve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of his second year at Northwestern, Roeser saw Katruud\u2019s band play its final gig, supporting a prototype Big Black. Encouraged by Albini, the pair teamed up, keeping the name Katruud\u2019s earlier group had taken from a Parliament lyric: \u201cBetter known as urge Overkill\/the pimping of the pleasure principle\u201d. The first recordings by \u2018Nate Kato\u2019 and \u2018Kid Roeser\u2019 were baldly derivative of Chicago\u2019s \u201980s industrial sound. Late one night, after listening to side one of Led Zeppelin\u2019s Presence, a dissatisfied Roeser told Kto he was quitting. \u201cI tried to convince him to stay,\u201d Kato remembers. \u201cHe said, \u2018Ok, on one condition: that we go all the way with it \u2013 straight to the top\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recalibrating closer to Roeser\u2019s heartland sensibilities, in 1987, Urge\u2019s albini-engineered version of Jimmy Webb\u2019s Wichita Lineman was released by Chicago indie label Touch & Go. Two subsequent albums with two different drummers \u2013 1989\u2019s Jesus Urge Superstar<\/em> and 1990\u2019s Butch Vig-produced Americruiser<\/em> \u2013 caused minor underground tremors. They opened for scene deities Sonic Youth and rising stars Mudhoney. But it wasn\u2019t until recruiting a demonically aggressive drummer from southwestern Chicago that Urge really began to motor. With John Rowan rechristened Blackie Onassis, they made The Supersonic Storybook<\/em> in dead studio time at the same upscale facility where Survivor recorded Eye of the Tiger. Powered by Onassis and a vivid Steve Albini recording, the singers\u2019 distinct characters emerged: Kato\u2019s alpha-male lounge lizard and Roeser\u2019s heartsore philosopher, both soulful variants on post-punk alienation. With a sleeve cartoon by Chicago artist Daniel Clowes, the UO iconography was coalescing. \u201cThrough Blackie\u2019s understanding of the city, we really made our home here, as opposed to being outsiders,\u201d Roeser says. \u201cWe finally found our voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Supersonic Storybook<\/em> was released in March 1991; a month later, Nirvana signed to Geffen. That summer, as the final licks of polish were applied to Nevermind, Geffen A&R Mio Vukovic visited urge Overkill in Chicago. He found the trio receptive to the notion of working less frugally. \u201cThey looked like Roxy Music,\u201d he says. \u201cI had never seen an indie band that looked like stars [before]. Urge had a whole other style.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n UO gave Ttouch & Go one final record, the stull EP, plainly a rush job: two tracks from a 1991 Sub Pop single plus four new songs, two of them covers. Girl, You\u2019ll Be a Woman Soon was recorded as an afterthought at the insistence of producer Kramer, who personally added the Liberace piano part in one take. \u201cWe didn\u2019t particularly care for our version,\u201d says Kato. \u201cIt\u2019s fraught with imperfection, the tempo is squishy. Kramer heard something we clearly did not. He said, \u2018Guys, this is your hit!\u2019 We\u2019re like, \u2018Bands like us don\u2019t have hits.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Signing with Geffen was the tipping point for many in Chicago who felt UO were getting too big for their spats. Although they maintain touch & Go acquiesced to their departure, it sparked a trade of insults with Albini in the Chicago press. \u201cWere we hurt?\u201d Roeser reflects. \u201cYeah, it is hurtful to be referred to as \u2018fools\u2019. But in a certain sense it\u2019s accurate, in that we weren\u2019t serious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was considered very un-punk to have commercial ambition,\u201d says Onassis. \u201cMaybe we were delusional, but delusions are important. Rock bands need delusions.\u201d In the summer of 1992, Onassis and Kato were sharing a tiny apartment opposite their favourite saloon, the Rainbo, whose bar tender told Blackie about a disused two-storey bank building in the Humboldt Park neighbourhood. The rent was 800 dollars a month, but Onassis suggested using Geffen\u2019s largesse to make it a band space where he could also live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus, \u2018the Bank\u2019 became a tangible manifestation of Urge Overkill\u2019s fantasy existence: the lounge housed a jukebox overflowing with \u201970s cream \u2013 Abba, ELO, the Isley Brothers, Grand Funk \u2013 and a wall of vinyl, from AC\/DC to ZZ Top. An 8-track recorder was installed in the basement to demo songs for the Geffen de but. Upstairs was Blackie\u2019s bedroom, featuring a life-size cardboard Neil Diamond, and a bathroom with superior reading material (Playboy; Cigar aficionado). Outside sat Kato\u2019s 1973 Ford Cougar convertible. No matter how loud their parties got, the police kept a distance, doubtless thanks to the band quickly befriending Humboldt Park\u2019s notorious Puerto Rican gang the latin kings. \u201cit served our interests,\u201d says Onassis. \u201cthey had things we liked to buy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initially, the Bank was a happy house. At studio 4 in Philadelphia, Urge recorded with producers Joe and Phil Nicolo, aka the Butcher Bros., twins whose credits embraced hip hop (schoolly D; Cypress Hill) and pop-rock (Aerosmith; Billy Joel). Exactly as planned, the resulting album hit a sweet midpoint between the two, with beats and guitars crunching like honeycomb on tunes conspicuously more straightforward than hitherto. \u201cWatching Nirvana night after night was a game-changer,\u201d says Kato. \u201cWe learned to dumb it down a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Released in June 1993 \u2013 just as Nirvana were finishing In Utero \u2013 Saturation<\/em> felt like a sun-kissed antidote to the ominous grunge clouds. \u201cThat was the most euphoric period in our career,\u201d says Roeser. Problems arose, however, when Urge, overconfident and underprepared, realised they had made an album they couldn\u2019t reproduce live. \u201cWhen someone hands you half a million bucks to make a record, you make a perfect record,\u201d says Kato. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean the band sound like a half a million bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There had long been a competitive edge to Kato and Roeser\u2019s relationship, but now it got petty. Roeser bridled at the popular misconception of Kato as the lead singer and songwriter. that their manager, Beth Winer, was Roeser\u2019s partner also caused friction. \u201cThey were like brothers,\u201d says Vukovic, \u201calways bickering \u2013 \u2018We could be doing better if we had a bigger manager.\u2019 This [constant] tension.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither of Saturation<\/em>\u2019s singles embedded on commercial radio. In the post-Nevermind<\/em> world, an alternative rock album selling 500,000 copies was merely respectable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was infighting,\u201d says Onassis. \u201cI felt tremendous pressure. I was only looking at record sales as a measure of success. That was stupid. But we toured relentlessly, and we became a better band. By the end of the Saturation<\/em> tour, things were back on the upswing.\u201d He sighs. \u201cThen, of course, Kurt died. Oh, that levelled me, man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n AT THE EPICENTRE OF EXIT THE DRAGON SITS THE mistake: lulling melody, woebegone lyrics, written and sung by Blackie Onassis. Although on one level an elegy to his lost friend Kurt Cobain, its poignancy derives chiefly from the realisation that Blackie is singing to himself and his bandmates: \u201ctravellin\u2019 \u2019cross the USA\/it\u2019s hard sometimes to keep it togeth er\u2026 Beware the overdose\u2026 never gonna make it today\/until you finally exit the dragon\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But no one listened. Reconvening with the Butcher Bros. in late 1994, urge Overkill were falling apart, personal ennui exacerbated by hard drugs. Kato now shared an apartment on Humboldt Boulevard with a character known as \u2018Bear\u2019, ostensibly Urge\u2019s driver and henchman at the Bank, but in reality the local Latin Kings gangmaster. An FBi sting would later see him imprisoned for heroin dealing. \u201cThat\u2019s an indication of how out there we were,\u201d Kato says ruefully. \u201cThis guy had guns stored all over my flat. Everything was available, and we said no to very little, if anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Kato dabbled, both Onassis and Roeser fell deeper into dependency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I finally listened to what Blackie was saying on the mistake, I was like, Holy shit \u2013 this is a suicide note,\u201d says Kato. \u201cThat tune really is the soundtrack to this dark existence we stumbled into. But I wouldn\u2019t say that was the undoing of the band. the fact that ed and i weren\u2019t talking had fuck all to do with heroin. We\u2019d just been together for 10 years. all these negative factors converged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were out-there. Everything was available and we said no to very little.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\nNash Kato<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Disgruntled at Kato hogging the limelight on Saturation<\/em>, Roeser now resented his partner for bringing very little material to the Dragon sessions<\/em>. Roeser, meanwhile, had turned personal darkness into a torrent of songs. One surprise element in the mutual mistrust emerged during the Saturation<\/em> tour as Chrissie Hynde began a whirlwind romance with Kato. \u201cSo when Nash was supposed to be writing songs for Exit The Dragon, he was actually jetsetting with Chrissie,\u201d says Roeser. \u201cI\u2019m sure they had a great time, but it left the rest of the band in the dirt. Though I can understand Nash falling into that. She\u2019s a formidable woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mio Vukovic watched aghast as the band worked separately in studio 4\u2019s three studios. \u201cThere was no other way to finish the record,\u201d he says. \u201cI had lost the band. And the drug abuse was not helping.\u201d When Courtney Love came to Chicago to mourn her husband in Urge\u2019s company, Geffen\u2019s executives became nervous. Their mood didn\u2019t improve when they finally heard the patently heroin-tainted Exit The Dragon<\/em>. \u201cAfter Kurt passed away, there was zero tolerance for shady goings on,\u201d says Onassis. \u201cWhen we turned in this junkie album, they weren\u2019t into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amidst Dragon<\/em>\u2019s painful genesis, the unforeseeable Pulp Fictionalisation of Girl, You\u2019ll Be Woman soon brought much-needed relief. But it also served as a melancholy reminder of happier days. \u201cThe whole join-our-clubhouse fun thing became a very unpleasant place for us to be. That was reflected accurately on Dragon<\/em>,\u201d says Roeser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The end was swift and somewhat farcical. Exit the Dragon<\/em> came out in October 1995: hindsight has placed its brittle grooves and narcotic drama in the same wracked lineage as Neil Young\u2019s Tonight\u2019s the Night<\/em> or Big Star\u2019s Third<\/em>, but most reviewers bemoaned the cancellation of Cocktail Hour. A US tour was curtailed amid the latest outbreak of intra-band animosity. \u201cI destroyed a hotel room for some reason,\u201d says Roeser. \u201cGeffen said: We\u2019re taking the bus back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In late December, Onassis was arrested and charged with possessing heroin, thereby missing the band\u2019s last show, a Page & Plant support slot at Rio De Janeiro\u2019s Hollywood Rock Festival on January 20, 1996. \u201cWe had four days to break in a replacement,\u201d says Kato. \u201cWhen that show was over, I went back to the hotel and wept for days. It was like a death in the family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a subsequent meeting, Geffen CEO Ed Rosenblatt offered a two-album deal extension. But Nash and the king knew they were done. For Roeser, it was a matter of life or death. \u201cI had Beth, a compelling reason to want to stay alive. And that\u2019s the path I took. I was not gonna survive another Urge Overkill record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON AUGUST 29, 2015, THE FOO FIGHTERS WILL play to 50,000 at Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, a place deep-rooted in Chicago\u2019s soul. Mindful of the arena\u2019s significance, Dave Grohl has selected three support acts synonymous with the Windy City: Cheap Trick, punk legends Naked Raygun\u2026 and Urge Overkill. Given their ambivalent relationship with Chicago, the town that nurtured and then shunned Urge, it\u2019s a welcome validation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWrigley Field is sacred ground,\u201d says Kato. \u201cTo be invited to play there undoes any previous chastisement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n How ironic, then, that the only member of Urge actually born and bred in Chicago will be missing. Blackie Onassis has been conspicuously absent from an urge reactivation that began in 2004 when Kato and Roeser bowed to entreaties from fans and mutual friends; thus far, the rapprochement has yielded one album, 2011\u2019s solid Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll Submarine<\/em>, and another is imminent. \u201cIt lives for its own reasons now,\u201d says Roeser, \u201cwe\u2019re not caught up in expectations or agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although candid interviewees, Kato and Roeser, become guarded about the drummer who helped define their band. \u201cBlackie was an integral part of a very vital chapter in the book of urge,\u201d says Kato. \u201cWe never discount that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There has been little public trace of John Rowan over the past 15 years, beyond dire rumour. So it\u2019s a relief to discover Blackie Onas sis living in Los Angeles, apparently healthy. He admits to feeling \u201cgobsmacked\u201d when Nash and Ed reunited without him, but today wishes them well. He\u2019s had bigger issues to confront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m clean and sober, it\u2019s been almost three years. Things got pretty bad for a long time after Urge. I got locked up a few times \u2013 I never went to prison, but things got pretty dark. It was hard to kick heroin. I was fighting for my life. But i got the help i needed and now i\u2019m taking care of my self. That\u2019s how I can look back at Nate and Ed with some love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would he rather he was still involved?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll never say never. They would have to want me. Our mistake was we broke up. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how many months go by without talking, no matter how much you hate the other guy\u2019s girlfriend, no matter how bad you think his songs are \u2013 never break up<\/em>.\u201d Blackie laughs. \u201cI know they\u2019re doing Wrigley Field. Well, mazel tov guys<\/em>! I won\u2019t be there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This article originally appeared in MOJO Issue 261<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the height of Nirvana\u2019s ascendancy, Urge Overkill were a Kurt Cobain-endorsed, Albini-produced acrylic flash of ’70s soul-stylings and cheap rick rock optimism. Then heroin, gangs and guns were added to the equation. Keith Cameron looks back on their short, stylish reign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":{"article_authors":"","send_as_draft":true,"send_as_paid":true,"send_as_featured":true},"modified_by":"akindell","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojov2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Urge](\"https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2026\/09\/iamge-2-1024x679.jpg\")
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![\"Urge](\"https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2026\/09\/Image-3-1-657x1024.jpg\")
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