“An infectious brand of sun-baked jangle-pop soaked in darkness.”—Richard Turgeon
Did you love me only in my head?
There were things you said and did to me,
They seem to come so easily;
The love I thought I’d won, you give for free.—Doug Hopkins, “Found Out About You”
Genius.com: “This song is about someone who has not been able to get over a relationship and is stuck on one person. The person often reflects on the past memories to cope with this feeling. His is gutted with sadness, hearing rumors that the woman he is in love with is hooking up with other guys.”
Emotionally troubled for years (and an alcoholic), Hopkins was kicked out of Gin Blossoms after his drinking problems got out of hand during recording sessions for their debut A&M Records album. After failed attempts at getting sober, December 5, 1993 was his last day. He was 32.
Gin Blossoms Take Root
The band formed in 1987 in their Tempe, Arizona hometown (a suburb of Phoenix). They developed a robust local following, and decided to pony up the dough to record their first album in 1989. Titled Dusted, it was produced by the band and Rich Hopkins (no relation, but a member of Tucson-based Sidewinders) released by Tucson’s San Jacinto Records.
On it were the Gin Blossoms’ first iterations of two of Hopkins’ songs, “Hey, Jealousy” and a break-neck-paced run-through of “Found Out About You,” likely spurred by only the wandering eye of a gal who done him wrong, and not the building wave of grunge about to break.
Lead singer, Robin Wilson, in 1994: “The first time we ever demo’d “Found Out About You,” we knew it was a hit song. I remember that being a significant event in my mind, when we were in the studio doing that song. I was sitting out on my car and what I imagined to be a hit song was a bunch of kids dancing to it at Tempe’s dance club, Devil House (below).
“We were listening to it, and Bill (Leen, Blossoms bassist) looked over at me and said, ‘Hey, wow, this song is going to get you a lot of women, isn’t it?’ I was just like ‘Yeah, whatever.’”
The original recording of “Found Out About You” for first album, Dusted, 1989:
“Without Doug and his songwriting, we never could have signed a record deal.”—Lead vocalist, Robin Wilson
Gin Blossoms got the attention of A&M Records in 1991. Pessimism seemed to become the byword for the band, as their first pass at their second album (their major label debut) came in way over budget and was nixed by label suits. Still, A&M allowed the band to produce a 5-song EP, the predictably pessimistic, Up and Crumbling (released in October 1991), to buy them all time to give their now-aptly-titled New Miserable Experience a second go (produced by the band and 2-time Grammy-winner, John Hampton).
Doug Hopkins was fired from the band after recording of the album had completed.
A&M’s strategy was to stick with the band, as the now Hopkins-less Blossoms dropped the new album in August 1992. A&M re-released it in late summer ‘93, not only to indicate a new-found eagerness to promote the band, but to allow more artistic control by band members, particularly singer, Robin Wilson:
As he told Forbes in 2019, “I did insist that I have total control over the new cover. So what you see on New Miserable Experience, those are all my photographs. I did the layout, I handwrote all the lyrics and I made sure that I had control over that.”
“Found Out About You”
Its composer, Doug Hopkins (above), had high hopes for making a hit. Wilson recalled that Hopkins was “very specific” about how the vocals for the song turned out.
The song was a favorite of the band’s, with both Wilson and drummer Phillip Rhodes naming it as Hopkins’s best song. As Rhodes commented to Faces Magazine in 1994, “In my opinion, that is the best song he ever wrote, and it is the best song on the record.”
Wilson revealed at the time, “I knew that song had to be the best vocal of my entire life. I knew that song had to be perfect, at least from my angle. Everybody else did it perfectly, and I had to rise up to the challenge as well....He wanted it to be a hit record and I’m glad it is; it’s a great song.”
Live, downtown Phoenix, January 2011:
Paolo Santos, 2003
Molly Parden & Hollow Hum, 2019
Molly Parden, Live in Carrboro, N. Carolina, August 2023:
Molly Parden was born in Atlanta, and raised in the Atlanta suburb of Jonesboro, GA. She now lives in Nashville.
Robin Wilson, Live, acoustic in-studio, Sirius/XM Satellite Radio, June 2022
Wind in Sails
Wind in Sails is the solo project of Newport, RI-based singer/songwriter, Evan Pharmakis. He’s signed to Headphone Music, an Equal Vision Records imprint.
For Pharmakis, Wind In Sails has always been a means of putting a positive message out there with hopes that people would find comfort in it.
“When I perform, I’m just me,” he says on the Equal Vision website. “I’m a normal person with struggles like everyone else. I love what I do and I mean what I say. When I perform I also really try to focus on why I wrote the songs I’m performing, and make my best effort to tap into the headspace I was in when I wrote them. I feel it makes for a much more true and honest portrayal of emotion.”
I really enjoyed your deep dive into Found Out About You by Gin Blossoms. The background of Doug Hopkins' song writing and the band's journey add such rich context. Highlighting various covers was fantastic, especially Molly Parden's rendition. This is a brilliant tribute to a timeless song!
The Gin Blossoms had a marvelous and unique songwriter in Doug Hopkins, who gave them their only gold record and whose two songs were responsible for New Miserable Experience going multi-platinum. And what does the label do but insist that they fire him from the band because he can't play on the record. Then the label withholds $15,000 from Hopkins until he signs over half his publishing royalties to them and half his mechanical royalties to Scott Johnson, even though Scott did not play on the album. Then they later issue bonus tracks and 8 out of 22 are by Hopkins.
Hopkins was right to not want to sign with that label (I'm not naming them here deliberately -- people can find the name online), but you reap what you sow. They should have helped Hopkins -- what efforts did they make to do so? none it appears -- and kept him on as a songwriter even if he couldn't keep playing guitar. He was the golden goose as far as songwriting goes and after the next album the band fizzled out imho.
So kudos to Doug Hopkins for writing some brilliant songs that live on, and to you for showcasing one of them.