Big Business

I’m talking to Big Business drummer Coady Willis just prior to the band’s New Years Eve show in their hometown of Seattle. He tells me that Big Business had Queen in mind as the production template for their new album.

Aside from the haywire timbre associations that statement generates, it’s not terribly strange in itself. The musical landscape would certainly benefit from a more frequent recognition of the merits of Freddie Mercury’s heroic rock-lust.

But it’s shocking coming from one half of Big Business, a drum and bass duo whose 2005 debut Head for the Shallows (Hydra Head) was a nasty little piece of thrash-core, exemplified by lead singer Jared Warren’s thunderous vocals and Willis’ drum bullying. But don’t be alarmed, Big Business isn’t going to channel Queen in any sound or fashion sense; they’re still a fire-soaked metal outfit.

It’s all about the feel of the band’s sophomore release Here Come the Waterworks; the album has an epic nobility and an anti-metal groove. When Big Business was in the studio with producer Phil Ek, they wanted to avoid the traditional metal treatment.

Warren and Willis were both entrenched in the ’90s Seattle scene, leaving their mark on some very respectable non-traditional bands: Karp, The Whip, Tight Bros from Way Back When, and Murder City Devils. Those groups all had serious metal energy while keeping an underlying pop sensibility to it all.

Ek is renowned for his work with hook-laden, indie-pop outfits such as Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, and The Shins. On Here Come the Waterworks, he polishes the Big Business sound into a cold steel. The album shakes the beehive with marked tempo changes to ice the blisters, vocals that rain down from on high, and all manner of artsy, guitar-laced noise.

The taunting album title prepares you for the weight of these tracks to hit. These are not quick spurts of burnout punk; these are eight tracks equaling forty minutes, a fevered pace balanced with the patience and substance to unwind slowly.

Warren’s vocals are layered, unique, and completely unleashed. His voice ranges from an operatic falsetto to an alpha-wolf howl that sounds as if it’s hammering down from the wrong side of Judgment Day. The drums are big and kidney-bean dense; the bass is fully primed and forms an ether through which the rest of the sounds move; the guitar is understated and seems to fall off in chunks.

Like Mission of Burma, there are all kinds of noise-play that exist in the sonic fringes, giving the album a heightened intensity. The album is subtle – there are no defined hooks and the melody is buried beneath these layers. This is what the Jesus and Mary Chain would’ve sounded like if the Beach Boys had never existed, if they substituted muscle for attitude. It’s Psychocandy with doom replacing the sugar.

[Here Come the Waterworks] shakes the beehive with marked tempo changes to ice the blisters, vocals that rain down from on high, and all manner of artsy, guitar-laced noise.

Although they don’t have a full-time guitarist, the guitar element isn’t new for the band. They brought Shins guitarist Dave Hernandez into the studio for their first record, and on this album, the slot is filled by multi-instrumentalist and avant noise experimentalist David Scott Stone.

And though they originally formed as a two-piece, the band is not opposed to absorbing a third full-time member, but the right person has not materialized yet. Big Business is fine with that – not only can they afford to be selective at this point, they also don’t seem to be in any hurry to facilitate the process. It’s consistent with the band’s motto of “keeping the overhead low,” and Warren and Willis will likely remain the creative core of Big Business regardless of new additions.

As Willis reasons, “it streamlines those tough decisions you have to make as a band – from the songwriting process to what restaurant to eat at after a show.”

Being a two-piece also enhances Big Business’ collaborative strengths, allowing them the freedom to bring any number of artists into the studio and culminating in their adoption into Seattle’s singular, freak-metal scare-jobs the Melvins.

Having first appeared on the Melvins’ well-received 2006 release (A) Senile Animal (Ipecac), Big Business is now completely integrated into their live shows as well. The Melvins have always had a proclivity for peddling two-headed creatures; either in their album cover art or in bizarre fan toys, and here they are in 2007 having literally evolved into that symmetrical creature.

In addition to Big Business, the Melvins’ line-up still includes singer Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne and original drummer Dale Crover. To catalogue the heads on this hydra, that’s two drummers, a bassist, a guitarist, and two maniacal vocalists.

The dual drummer aspect had been an artistic configuration on Osborne’s mind since the early days; at one point the Melvins asked Dave Grohl to fill the slot. That was after the dissolution of Nirvana and Grohl apparently had other plans, but this left the door open over a decade later for Warren and Willis (long-time friends of the Melvins) to step in.

The Melvins already had a professional respect for the pair, and the consummation was predicated on the condition that Big Business continue as a separate entity. Who knew King Buzzo could be so considerate?

But just because they were joining the Melvins as peers didn’t make the prospect any less intimidating for the new members. Apart from the storied history that directly or indirectly includes such legendary punk names as Matt Lukin, Jello Biafra, Mike Patton, and Kurt Cobain (a friend of Crover’s from the Aberdeen days), the Melvins are also known for chewing through bassists (they set up a bassist morgue on their web site to recount the carnage).

Willis remembers seeing the Melvins live as a 15-year-old, and even cites Crover as an influence on his own drum patterns and sensibilities. But any idol awe was short lived as the bands fell right into sync; now they’re so totally integrated that the live shows flow continuously.

Big Business opens the show and the Melvins join in without so much as a break. No reason to stop when you’ve got that kind of momentum. As Willis says, he’s “just feeling warmed up by the end of the Big Business set” anyway.

– Story by Jonathan Easley, photo by Bryan Sheffield