Jellyfish The Sad History Of the Band, Andy Sturmer & Roger Manning, Belly Button & Spilt Milk

The Story Of the Rock Band Jellyfish featuring the songwriting duo of Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning -----GET A SECRET VIDEO PLAYLIST----- Sign up for email news and get a link to my secret playlist with 10 of my best stories. https://bit.ly/3emyloM -----CONNECT ON SOCIAL----- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rocknrolltruestories Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RNRTrueStories Twitter: https://twitter.com/rocktruestories Blog: www.rockandrolltruestories.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/RNRTrueStories #jellyfish #spiltmilk #bellybutton W This is a band that’s been requested by a lot of people and we're talking about the group Jellyfish. They were a short lived band based out of California that only lasted for about half a decade and put out two studio albums, but they would be hugely influential and develop a cult following. . The nucleus of the of the band was made up of drummer/singer Andy Sturmer and singer/keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr., The pair would cycle through a revolving lineup of instrumentalists and today we're talking about the story of Jellyfish a band that ended too soon. The band’s story dates back to the 70’s when Andy Sturmer and Roger Joseph Manning Jr met in high school in San Francisco and bonded over their love of all things jazz, post-punk, and British pop. Sturmer played in his high school’s jazz band and showed promise as a gifted musician who could sing and play drums at the same time. Manning would tell Classic Rock magazine “I’ve never seen anyone of his age with that expertise and command of his instrument. Andy was one of the first kids in our town who took it seriously and had a goal. He was my hero.” Following highschool Manning moved to Los Angelesand was admitted to University of South California to study musical composition and became enamored with the local music scene.. LA was alive to the sounds of post-punk, the Byrds-obsessed Paisley Underground movement and, most prominent of all, glam-metal, which was exploding from the Sunset Strip. But Manning would be captivated by an LA band that stood apart: the flamboyantly attired pop-rockers Redd Kross. Soon enough Sturmer and Manning would join the act Beatnik Beatch, which was signed to Atlantic Records. They would soon leave the group after collaborating with one another and they developed their own musical style and in 1989 they formed the group Jellyfish. Combining the musical stylings of The Beatles, Cheap Trick, ELO, and Queen Jellyfish would become pop rock pioneers and develop what many would consider their own unique sound. Even after the pair left Beatnik Beatch they were still technically signed to Atlantic Records but they weren’t a priority for the label. The band’s career began at a time when rock music was undergoing a massive shift from pop-influenced and hair metal to the dark gloomy sound of alternative rock at the turn of the new decade. Jellyfish, didn’t really fit what record labels were trying to push in the early 90’s. The aesthetic of the band was completely off the wall - think steampunk meets psychedelic hippie. In a 1993 L.A. Times article, Sturmer said that the group “"never tried to suck up to any genre of music. We just did what came naturally to us and didn't worry about it." After they were signed to Atlantic, records they recorded over the course of a year, becoming the subject of a bidding war with 8 labels The band would eventually settle with Charisma records who gave the band total creative control and their first record Bellybutton was released on July 27, 1990 when hair metal was still highly popular. The band was always aware of the fact that they were entirely contrary to what was going on in popular music at the time. The top performing single, Baby’s Coming Back, would hit the Billboard Top 100 charts but album sales were kind of slow only topping out at 100,000 units. The band’s singles also got the video treatment which got some lay on MTV, but Jellyfishbut was far from being considered a household name, but they did find high profile fans. The band would tour with southern rock group the black crowes who took jellyfish out on tour in 1991. Member Jason Faulkner briefly joined the group with the bait of a major label deal and would stay with them through the recording of Bellybutton. Faulkner and Sturmer immediately clashed. In a 2014 Louder Sound online article, Faulkner said “I immediately had trouble with Andy - he’s just a difficult guy.” Andy had a real strong idea of what he wanted to do, and I found that my voice wasn’t as loud,” \ “They weren’t open to doing any of my songs, and I didn’t want to be a sideman. With personality conflicts gong on, Faulkner still has fond memories of the first album telling louder sound It was a really exciting time making that record, but also bittersweet,” says Falkner. “The

Added 16 Aug 2026