Loudmouth frontman Bob Feddersen has to be feeling like his onetime job with the Chicago Electric Company is just a bad, distant dream.| Not only is his band, who have been carving out a niche in the Windy City for the last six years, springing their fiercely hard-rocking, self-titled debut album on the world, but their first single, "Fly," is steadily climbing rock radio charts thanks to its cameo in Varsity Blues. Add to that a two-month tour with Godsmack, and the future looks bright. "It's surreal," says the unassuming Feddersen, "to think that people around the country are hearing our song on the radio or in the movie, while we're just working away in our rehearsal space."

What's even more surreal is that Feddersen's previous brush with rock & roll greatness was when he was invited onstage with none other than Metallica to sing one of his band's songs in front of a packed St. Louis stadium. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich had been pursuing Loudmouth for his start-up label, the Music Company, and invited Feddersen to spend a few days on the road with them.

"It was my last night with them. James [Hetfield] started playing this riff, and my buddy Steve, who works for Metallica, goes, 'Dude, they're playing your tune.' I didn't know at first because it was in a different key, but I was like, 'Wow, it is!' So Steve says, 'Go out there and sing it!' and I'm like, 'No way!' But James motioned for me to come out, so I ran out there and sang the tune with them in front of 42,000 people. It blew my mind -- I thought I was gonna have a heart attack!"

Although Loudmouth eventually signed with another label (Hollywood Records), Ulrich and Hetfield were quite vocal in their appreciation of the band, first coming to see them at a Chicago club called the Double Door. "They were in town to play at the Rosemont Horizon and wanted to check us out, so Lars called from their show and said, 'I'm on my way over, you guys better kick my ass!'" recalls guitarist Tony McQuaid. "So he, James, and Pepper Keenan from Corrosion of Conformity came and really dug it."

Loudmouth's music is cut from the same cloth as classic, Midwestern working-class favorites like Ted Nugent and Grand Funk Railroad, a brand of straightforward, meat-and-potatoes heavy rock that hasn't exactly been fashionable for most of the Nineties. "We grew up in blue collar families," says McQuaid. "We worked very hard to do this -- everyone worked different jobs. You'd work all day, go to practice at night, grab a beer and go to bed. We did that for a long time. We're not pretentious about it. It's a gift to be able to go out and do this and give it to people, so we take it seriously."

Seeing a band like Loudmouth (which is rounded out by drummer John Sullivan and bassist Mike Flaherty) carry the torch for traditional heavy rock is refreshing in the post-alternative age, where sampling and hip-hop rule supreme. "I think a lot of the biggest records have always been guitar-based records, whether it was Guns N' Roses, Nirvana or whatever," surmises Feddersen. "A lot of people just want to rock."

DON KAYE(April 20, 1999)