After the Rain (Nelson album)

Matthew and Gunnar Nelson decided to approach Geffen Records for a record deal. They began talks with A&R executive John Kalodner. According to Gunnar, they met with Kalodner "every month for a year", during which he filtered the songs they brought him until they had enough for an album.[5] Most of the songs of the album were co-written with Marc Tanner, who was introduced to the band by Tom Vickers. Gunnar Nelson described the collaborating process in an interview as "magical" and praised Tanner for being "very supportive of our own instincts and our melodic sense".[6] Tanner also produced the album.[7]

After a year of meeting with Kalodner without being signed, Matthew and Gunnar met with him alone, against the wishes of their managers, and played an acoustic version of "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection". Kalodner was so impressed that the band was signed the next day.[5] As they prepared to record, Matthew and Gunnar started assembling a band. They settled on drummer Bobby Rock, Joey Cathcart, Brett Garsed, and Paul Mirkovich.[5][8] Mirkovich also contributed an "Interlude" to the album.[7]

In the making of the album, there were several issues in creating the album.[9] One was that Gunnar could not play guitar.[9] Gunnar stated "But what if I took a year off and all I did for that year was play guitar for 10 hours a day, every day?[9]" Gunnar ended up studying and learning how to play. Another issue was their songwriting.[9] Then another issue was the producers for the album: they had to fight the label[9] to get Tanner behind production, and they were initially supposed to work with Duane Baron and John Purdell, which both never worked out. Eventually, they worked with Tanner and co-producer David Thoener, who helped shape Nelson's influences into a modern, radio-friendly sound.[9]

After the Rain was recorded at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, and Studio B in Hollywood.[7] According to Gunnar Nelson, they weren't "intimidated" by the process, despite being relatively new to the industry. He also credits co-writer and producer Marc Tanner for keeping them focused.[5]

According to the Nelsons, Geffen producer John Kalodner "basically let us do our own thing". Gunnar has said that Kalodner's process of filtering songs before signing them helped them sort out their material and made it easy for them to come up with the songs for the album.[5]

After the Rain was released on June 26, 1990, and became an instant success, peaking at #17 on the Billboard 200. It also featured some staying power, remaining in the charts for 64 weeks.[3] The album was eventually certified double platinum by RIAA after selling more than 2,000,000 copies.

The first single of the album was the song "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection". It peaked at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100. The other three singles also peaked on the charts. They were "After the Rain" (#6), "More than Ever" (#14), and "Only Time will Tell" (#28).[3]

As a result of the success of the album, the band began a World Tour with over 300 concerts.

After finishing the touring cycle for After the Rain, the band found themselves in massive debt despite the album's success.[9] Nelson returned to the studio and recorded their second album, Imaginator, but it was rejected by their producer and the label for being too dark and heavy.[9] Shelving that album, the band recorded a new collection of songs[9] which became their second release Because They Can 5 years after their debut in 1995. By this time fans had moved on, and the record failed[9] to chart, bringing to Nelson's relationship with the label to an end.