Restricted Access
The following historical archive contains mature themes describing sexual harassment, coercion, and inappropriate professional conduct.
These events are critical to understanding the band's history, but the details are disturbing. We do not save your preference for this page; you must acknowledge this warning every time you view it.
Friction
The Unrecorded Title Track (1992)
The song that killed a contract. The moment the "Cold War" turned into a nuclear option.
1. The "Fatal Assumption"
In 1992, Apex Records assigned a new Executive Producer, Julian Vance, to the band. Julian had never worked with The Stardust Engine before. He looked at the roster, saw "Ryan O'Connell" and "Cassidy O'Connell," and made the lazy, catastrophic assumption that they were a married couple (like Silver Stream), not blood siblings (like The Masons).
Julian was obsessed with Cydele's upcoming Sanctuary project (the "Worship" book era). He wanted his own "porn project" to compete. He pitched the title "Friction" to the band, envisioning a graphic concept album about sexual tension.
2. The Misunderstanding
When Julian pitched the title, the band was ecstatic. They immediately interpreted "Friction" through their own "Cosmos and Rockets" lens: the literal, scientific friction of a space shuttle re-entering Earth's atmosphere.
The "Atmosphere" Demo
Believing they were finally on the same page, the band recorded a demo for "Atmosphere." The lyrics ("Burning up with our desire," "Breaking through this atmosphere") were about heat shields and ionization. Julian heard the demo and, in his depraved mindset, assumed they were "playing along" with brilliant sexual metaphors.
3. The Reveal (The Title Track)
The truth did not come out until the fateful photo shoot in September 1992. It was there that Julian finally revealed his vision for the Title Track.
He did not want metaphors. He presented a lyrical draft that demanded Ryan and Cassidy sing about—and sound like they were engaging in—actual sexual intercourse. His production notes called for "heavy breathing," "bedspring sounds," and a vocal performance that left nothing to the imagination.
He was demanding that a brother and sister perform incest for a paycheck.
4. The Breaking Point
Ryan O'Connell famously threw the lyrical draft into the trash, delivering the line that would become legend in the legal depositions that followed:
"She's! My! Sister!"
Even then, Julian hesitated. He assumed they were "stage siblings" like The Vectors (a punk band who famously adopted a shared surname despite no relation). He thought Ryan was just maintaining the gimmick.
Then he looked at Holly O'Connell, the young manager standing in the corner whom he had dismissed as "average" and "not a model." He realized she shared the name too. The realization hit him like a physical blow: It wasn't a gimmick. They were a family.
He had just asked a brother and sister to commit a felony on camera, in writing, in front of witnesses.
A 23-Year Echo: "Re-Ignition"
The title track was never recorded. However, the instrumental demo—a heavy, driving rock riff intended to simulate the shaking of a spacecraft—survived in the band's personal archives.
In 2015, for their reunion album, the band finally resurrected this riff. They stripped away Julian's perversion and paired the music with their original concept. The result was the title track "Re-Ignition"—a song about surviving the fire and coming home, exactly as they had always intended.
