PULLING IT OFF: (Left to right) Mark, Nick, Mike, and Sue Ivanitch

By GREGG KIRK
Big Shout Magazine, March 1995

Remember Gravity’s Pull? You should. In the early part of this decade, they sprang from nowhere and developed from a fledgling semi-cover band into one of the state’s more prominent original units. They were the foremost members of a group of bands — including the Caulfields, Psychic Warfare, Mystery Machine, and Charming Arms — that had become sort of a Delaware band clique. In fact, it was this group of friends who threw a farewell benefit bash for them when they decided to up and move to Chapel Hill, NC four years ago.

So what have the four members — all of whom sport the last name of Ivanitch (Mike, Mark, and Nick are brothers and Sue is married to Nick) — been doing besides releasing a CD called Motorama and having longtime pals the Caulfields open for them last month in North Carolina? They stopped by our office to fill us in…

Big Shout: When was it when you left the area?

Mark: September of ’91.

BS: So, what made you guys leave?

Mark: Umm, well, we thought that we got as far as we were going to get here… at the time. I mean, I think the Delaware scene has picked up a lot since we’ve left. But we needed a change. A friend of ours, who did his undergraduate work in Chapel Hill, had for at least a year been telling us that he was going to move back there. We decided to just go down there for a little trip to check it out and see what we thought, and we loved the area so we just went for it.

Sue: Yeah, but by the time we went down there to check it out, we were actually looking for a place to live. So we were pretty much decided about that, but we didn’t tell anyone around here until right before we left because we were a little afraid. Everybody seemed to be very jealous of it. Everybody wanted to leave here, too. But nobody else was in our position — like, we’re a family. No one else was willing to leave their day jobs. We didn’t feel like we had a broad future in Delaware.

Mark: Don’t get the wrong impression — we’re not putting Delaware down, it’s just that…

BS: Well, actually I’m interested by what you said about the Delaware scene picking up now.

Mark: Well, with the Caulfields getting signed and with Smashing Orange… I mean at the time, no one was getting signed, so to me, that’s amazing. And I know that maybe I’m just believing a little bit of the hype, but it’s like that even down there. People up here might think, “Oh, Chapel Hill, it’s such a great place.” And it is in a way, but at the same time there’s more hype about that place than we’re maybe willing to believe. So maybe I’m just buying into some of the hype of Delaware now. But no matter where you are, it’s still about your own band. The scene is only as good as it’s happening for us — no matter where we go.

BS: So fill me in on the transition when you first moved down there.

Mark: Well, we had each other, but that was about it. We quickly realized we were a nobody band. We had no fans whatsoever. Luckily, we met a couple people who actually knew us from Delaware and they started to bring out their friends, but still we realized the cold hard truth that we were nobodies again and playing really crappy bars.

Sue: The cool thing about it was, though, we were a brand new band in a brand new state that nobody had heard of, and yet the very first time they saw us, we already had three years under our belts. So when we first came out, they were like, “Wow, these guys are good.” It’s not like we were just starting out in North Carolina; we didn’t just form and get together. To them, we were totally brand new and yet we had confidence and original songs and we weren’t fledglings. So we had some advantages over other new bands.

BS: When did things start to change for you there?

Mark: Well, on thing that we’ve always gotten is pretty critical reviews. We put out a five-song tape and we made it into the “Top 10 Albums of Chapel Hill” in the Chapel Hill News. And I think that’s the main thing we’ve gotten so far, and about a year ago this time, we got a manager.

BS: So what has he done for you so far?

Mark: I guess the biggest thing was he got Paul Mahern (Antennae, Judy Bats) to produce our album.

Sue: Well, he got us to make an album. He pushed us even though we didn’t really think we had the money. He said, “Look, I don’t care if you have the money or not — we’re doing this and you can pay it of later.”

He’s also making connections and getting all of the business end of it out of the way. He’s starting to shop the CD a little bit, but he’s not pushing too far, too fast.

BS: So what brings you back to the area?

Sue: Well, we’re gonna start trying to get up here more like once a month. We’re gonna try to expand a little more and get up into Philly. We might as well be strangers up there now.

BS: Is there anything you want to say to the people of Delaware?

Sue: Buy our album.