Sacramento, CA · post-grunge · alt-rock

Oleander

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Sacramento's own late-'90s radio rock, playing a hometown crowd that remembers every word — 'Why I'm Here' loudest of all.

Oleander formed in Sacramento, California, in 1995, when singer and guitarist Thomas Flowers and bassist Doug Eldridge, who had met a few years earlier working at a local restaurant, brought in guitarist Ric Ivanisevich and drummer Fred Nelson Jr. The band's name comes from the poisonous flowering shrub that lines highways across Northern California.

They belonged to the wave of American post-grunge bands that found radio play at the end of the 1990s, working the melodic end of alternative rock with distorted guitars, mid-tempo arrangements and hooks built for rock radio formats of the era. A Sacramento station's airplay of "Down When I'm Loaded" turned into a regional hit and led, after a support slot with Sugar Ray, to a major-label deal.

Oleander is best known for "Why I'm Here," from their 1999 major-label debut February Son, which also carried "I Walk Alone" and turned up on Dawson's Creek; the band played Woodstock '99 that year. Their second album, Unwind, followed in 2001 with "Are You There?" and "Champion," a song tied to the sacrifice of September 11 firefighters whose proceeds went to victims' families.

The band released four studio albums in all before going on hiatus following 2004's Joyride. They reunited in 2008 and released Something Beautiful in 2013, and have kept performing and recording intermittently since, with "Why I'm Here" remaining the song most closely tied to their name.

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post-grungealt-rock