With fellow
Seattle-ite
Dan Hoerner, Jeremy Enigk (pron.
ee'-nihk) was
singer, principal
songwriter and founder member of
emo legends Sunny Day Real Estate, from their inception under a different name circa
1989 through to
1995, when the band split after their first album
Diary. Enigk's unassuming appearance belied an almost
unfeasible voice, swooping, quavering and seemingly always getting higher, and an
accent that would lead everyone to mistakenly think he was
English.
It is generally cited that
SDRE's split was caused by Enigk
finding God and becoming a
born-again Christian, an announcement made in a notorious
e-mail to a concerned fan who had heard the band had broken up. Fans thought this was the last they would hear of Sunny Day after the SDRE
rhythm section left to join
Dave Grohl's nascent
Foo Fighters, but Enigk returned a year later with typically uncategorizable new material.
Seemingly no stranger to
rock'n'roll cliche (what with
spiritual enlightenment and members leaving to join higher-profile bands), Enigk's first
solo album Return of the Frog Queen, released on SDRE's label
Sub Pop, saw him heading out with only his
acoustic guitar, his
voice... and a 21-piece
orchestra. The album neatly avoided the usual
cause and effect of orchestral backing, namely
massive cocaine use and yawnworthy
self-indulgence. Instead, it planted itself firmly at the divide between
classical and
punk, taking
SDRE's
yearning and their more
ambient guitar work and layering it with
oboes,
xylophones and
string sections among others. The result was by turns
stately,
pastoral and mildly
psychedelic, with tracks such as "
Explain" earning comparisons to early
Pink Floyd.
In 1997, Sunny Day Real Estate reformed and have since released two further
studio albums and a
live set. Jeremy Enigk has not since released any more solo work, but apparently plans to release an album of
4-track material and an album "with more of a
Japanese theme" in the future.