A Powerhouse Band That We Don’t Think of as a Band: Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette chose brilliant musicians to tour Jagged Little Pill.
When Alanis Morisette recorded Jagged Little Pill with producer Glen Ballard they knew they would need to assemble a rock band for the tour. Transitioning from traditional pop to transcendent pop required musicians that could amplify the raw emotion of Alanis.
The album dealt with love, breakups, religion, feminism, happiness, irony, depression, optimism, humor, rage, family, and the list goes on. Popular opinion at the time was that Alanis was just so angry but that narrative couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Auditions led to a great group of musicians being hired to support her. The guitarists picked were Nick Lashley and Jesse Tobias. Taylor Hawkins on drums. Then the accidental selection of Chris Chaney who showed up to rehearsals and Alanis realized she called back the wrong guy.
Chaney prided himself on his jazz background, not knowing the rock music of the late 80s and early 90s so Hawkins told him to listen to Soundgarden and Jane’s Addiction to get the direction their band wanted to go in according to the HBO Max documentary Jagged.
