Chapter 3: Hey You Wild Animals...

For the next several months, the Cherries continued to write three chord punk songs about giggling cows, carniverous sofas, and very angry teacups. In the fall of 1992, all of the work came to fruition as the Cherries convened in the Butthole to record You Know If You Were To Fry That.... The story of this first recording session follows the same outline as that of many bands working on their first album. The recording was completed in just over two days on four tracks. The album would become released under the title Hey You Wild Animals, Put Down That Meat and the result was nothing short of perfection...or so it seemed to the Cherries.

Recently, Charles and Wes sat down to work on compiling music for the long planned Hek-Atomic Cherries Shoebox. Upon listening to Hey You Wild Animals... for the first time in almost ten years, Charles commented that the album sounded like "Fischer-Price my first album." It was very simply recorded and mixed and released in order to get the work out to the masses. Guy Cuccio, a devotee and major supporter of the Cherries, once commented that the album was so simple but that's what made it so beautiful. "This was a cohesive group of songs recorded by four individuals who had only started playing their respective intruments eight months prior to it's release. Frankly, that is an amazing accomplishment."

Hey You Wild Animals... was released on November 10, 1992 and was an immediate underground success. Word of mouth traveled fast about this young band who had still not played a live show. The music spoke for itself. This was never more evident than when another local area band performed a cover version of the crowd favorit "Muffin Poop." All this and still the Cherries had not played a show. However, all that was about to change.



Chapter 4: Hitting the Stage...and the Roof

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