Veruca Salt – Volcano Girls

A girl can’t spoil herself, you know.


With perhaps one of the most unappealing band names in history, taken from the Willa Wonka character, Veruca Salt still managed to be one of the few bands to survive the downfall of grunge.

The band, lead by Nina ‘the blonde one’ Gordon and Louise ‘the other one’ Post, rose to early prominence after scoring a hit with Seether after only playing a handful of gigs. This brought them to the attention of Geffen Records who released their typically demurely titled EP Blow It Out Your Ass, It’s Veruca Salt!

They followed this in 1997 with the album Eight Arms To Hold You and its standout single Volcano Girls. The song was an immediate success thanks to its catchy chorus, rawk guitar solo and a video that’s as much fun as you can film without providing proof of age.

1997 also saw the cracks begin to appear between the two frontwomen. Whilst on tour in Australia Louise Post found out her then boyfriend Dave Grohl was cheating on her with celebrity kleptomaniac Winona Ryder. This prompted her to set off on a drink and drugs binge ending in her passing out topless on stage. Gordon and her boyfriend, Veruca Salt’s drummer Stacy Jones, were less than impressed. Jones left the band at that point and Gordon followed the next year.

Post recruited Suzanne Sokol to replace Gordon but Veruca Salt but never regained the chemistry the original band had. Gordon went on to have a similarly lacklustre solo career – at least until last year when blogland went crazy over her lilting acoustic version of NWA’s Straight Outta Compton (hear it on her website).


Veruca Salt – Volcano Girls

Buy Eight Arms To Hold You