Glorium emerged from San Antonio's underground rock scene in 1991, almost immediately grabbing attention with a fractured brand of post-punk that paired surrealistic lyrics and slashing guitars with nimble rhythmic interplay.
After a relocation to Austin, the band appeared on bills with acts as varied as At the Drive-In, Spoon and Man or Astroman and issued a spate of well-received releases on indie labels, including its own Golden Hour imprint.
Along the way, the quintet embraced constant sonic evolution. The early abrasiveness gave way to dynamic material that explored a quieter kind of chaos. Although writers sometimes tried to pigeonhole the band as emo or noise rock, its eclectic and arty musical approach defied such easy categorization.
After multiple tours — including one that included support slots for Fugazi — Glorium went on hiatus in 1997. For the most part, the group kept its original lineup for the duration: Juan Ramos on drums, George Lara on bass, Paul J. Streckfus on vocals and Ernest Salaz and Lino Max on guitars.
Now, following the release of remastered versions of Glorium's '90s albums on all formats by Halo Noise Records, that same lineup is scheduled to perform a pair of reunion shows: Friday, April 7 at Austin's 13th Floor and Saturday, April 8 at San Antonio's Paper Tiger. The latter will feature High Heavens, The Please Help and DJ Plata as openers.
The Current caught up with Glorium's Salaz and Ramos via Zoom to talk about what prompted the performances, whether new material is in the works and what contributed to the band's sonic restlessness.
How much are these gigs about promoting the rereleases, and how much is just wanting to get back together and play?
Ramos: Well, I think the plan was to support the release with these shows. But every time we get together, I don't know, I feel like I have a good time, and it's really fun. I've been a bunch of bands over the years, and this band has always been special for me. So, yeah, an opportunity to get together with these guys is a great one for me.
Salaz: Yeah, I would agree. It seemed natural that we would play after rereleasing all the albums and [putting them] on streaming. We had talked about doing a remastering effort a while ago. But I think only recently the pandemic kind of brought out some things. We had some good friends that passed too, as you probably know. And all of that just sort of came to a head, and we were like, "Let's do it now." We were never on streaming before. We were on Bandcamp, but I think that's kind of a limited audience. So, it just kind of came up organically, and we thought, "Let's go for it." And of course, playing is the ultimate part of it. So, I'm glad that everyone finally got on board to do it. It's been fun.
I've seen the name Glorium pop up for benefit shows periodically. It seems like you guys weren't ever in a situation where you weren't talking, where you weren't willing to play. Is this a kind of an open-ended situation where we may see other Glorium shows in the future?
Ramos: Well, I've always said that I'm up for doing any shows that come up, but I can't say that everyone in the band feels the same. I guess we'll find out how these shows go. These two shows that are booked I'm really looking forward to. And I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic, that I'll get my way and we'll get to play a few more.
Salaz: Yeah. It's very much a democracy, and in that regard, there's always someone that is disappointed or would rather move forward and someone who's is going to be disappointed with some decision along the way. So, I would love to keep playing. I would love to put out some new songs, actually. That's really what I would love to do.
Ramos: Oh, that's the sticking point, right? It's like, why bother to get together and do this if we don't have new songs? And so, if these shows go well, that might mean we have to work on some new songs.
Over the years, Glorium was in a constant state of musical evolution. I'm wondering if you feel like that aspect of the band would still be there if you were to start putting together new music?
Ramos: I think we've talked about that recently, in talking about Close Your Eyes, the album that hardly anybody heard back when we made it. At our age now, we're better able to perform those songs. I feel like we perform those songs better now, as opposed to the really early stuff that was a lot faster and louder and more aggressive sounding. And I kind of feel like if we were to make more new music now, it would be closer to the style of Close Your Eyes.
Salaz: We have tried to write new material over the years. Behind the scenes, we would get together, come up with a few ideas. Just getting us in the same room is a challenge. So, once we did that, for one reason or another, it didn't quite work out. And even now, at this point, we're meeting when we can to practice. But writing new material, that's a whole other ball of wax, as you know. And to feel it out and give it the right time takes a lot of effort. Back in the day — in the '90s — half of us were living together, half of us were living down the street. But sometimes Juan would be in San Antonio or George would be living in San Antonio, and we'd have to figure it out. When we first moved to Austin, we were practicing, and the only time we could get together was at 8 a.m. Do you remember those practices, Juan?
Ramos: Yeah. Yeah.
Salaz: I think George had to work at H-E-B or something, and he was dressed in his khakis and shirt and all that. Or maybe that was you. I can't recall who.
Ramos: No, I was working at Target, so I had the red shirt and the khakis.
Salaz: Oh, that's right.
Ramos: But yeah, the dedication, the commitment was so intense. It was really like that was our whole lives almost, doing that. But one of the things that's happened now is each of us has grown apart, musically. We've done different music projects over the years, and we've all sort of grown apart. So, that's the other thing that's challenging about getting together to work on new songs is we're all in different places now musically with the experiences that we've had.
In a way, you guys were learning as you went rather than being people who played in other bands for 10 years before this started. Was that the genesis for Glorium's willingness to keep tinkering with the sound and evolving it?
Ramos: I think for me, it was an attitude and maybe a confidence that we had. It was like a chip on our shoulder — that we could keep being creative. That was the thing that was important to us for some reason. "Is that OK? If we did that, then what's next? If we already did that, then can we do something else that's just as interesting, just as engaging?" Always trying to be creative is the attitude I think that I had. And I kind of feel like everyone was trying to do that same thing — do something new that we hadn't done before. Why was that so important to us? I don't know. ... Ernest, can you explain that? Why was it so important to us that we had to keep, in our minds, moving forward?
Salaz: I've been thinking about that a lot too, actually. We've been looking backwards, getting all this music ready to be remastered, and now we're playing these shows. So, we're just constantly looking back. And that could be healthy, and that could be really unhealthy, depending on how you're feeling. But for me, I think about Glorium, we started almost like a garage band. We were a garage band. ... And we didn't know what we were doing. And that's been our mindset since day one — that we don't necessarily know where we're going. We just know we've got to keep going. And so, over the years, everyone kind of grows into the roles a little bit. And I have to say that I think Paul, and especially Linus (Lino Max), both of them really have such a unique take on the world. And they're very inspiring. They're very creative. And that was a counterpoint in a way to Juan, George and I, where we're more musical and could do all these different songs, different covers. And they just had this viewpoint that informed our music a lot. And so, there was always a constant questioning, a constant searching, never feeling settled. It was just like every musical style that we went through was a journey. And I don't think we really questioned it after a while. That was what we did since day one.
$15-$20, 7 p.m. Saturday, April 8, Paper Tiger, 2410 N. St. Mary's St., papertigersatx.com.
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