KEVIN WILLIS
Visqueen: from left, Rachel Flotard, Kim Warnick, and Ben Hooker.
KEVIN WILLIS
Visqueen: from left, Rachel Flotard, Kim Warnick, and Ben Hooker.
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"I've been sitting here talking about my relationships, really serious stuff," says Visqueen singer Rachel Flotard, "and she keeps interrupting to point out a certain drum fill.""Yeah," admits bassist Kim Warnick, "I'm like, 'Uh-huh, that's really interesting and—wait, wait, check out this part right here!" she says slashing away at an imaginary cymbal.
It's happy hour at the end of a long work week, and the members of Visqueen—Flotard, Warnick, and drummer Ben Hooker—have gathered at Capitol Hill's Satellite Lounge to discuss life, love, and, apparently, percussion on the David Bowie records blaring over the bar's sound system.
Sharing drinks and conversation with the band, it doesn't take long to suss out or be swayed by their distinctive personalities: Warnick's unbridled energy, Flotard's easy charm, or Hooker's self-effacing middleman routine. In fact, hanging out with Visqueen is an experience not unlike listening to them play—a barely contained barrage of piss-takes, personal chemistry, and sugar-rush choruses. And their songs, like the band itself, have a way of sticking in your head long after the music is done.
VISQUEEN'S SLOW BIRTH came about with the death of Hooker and Flotard's previous combo, Halfacat, which breathed its last in early 2001.
"After Halfacat broke up, Ben and I continued playing in our practice space like a couple losers, crying a lot, and wondering what the hell we were gonna do," says Flotard.
The pair eventually decided to soldier on and began the search for a new bass player. Fate delivered them one in the person of Fastback Kim Warnick.
"One day I'm driving in the car with [a friend] and I'm saying, 'God, I don't know what bass players there are out there I'd want to play with,'" recalls Flotard. "'What about Kim Warnick?' Just then this jalopy pulls up next to us at the stoplight . . . and it was Kim."
Further coincidence: It turned out Warnick had caught one of Halfacat's final shows and was immediately taken by Flotard's propulsive pop vignettes.
"They just struck me," says Warnick of the songs. "Eventually [Rachel] dropped a CD off at my work. On the way home that night, I put it in and listened to it. I ended up driving really far, way past my house, just to keep listening to this record. Before long I realized, I have to call this person and be in this band. I didn't know how to do that, though. I was terrified."
If Warnick had fears about how she'd join the group, Flotard was equally petrified of the bassist's legendary, larger-than-life persona.
"I'd never really met Kim before, and she scared the shit out of me," laughs Flotard. "But now I know she's just a doily of sweetness and kindness."
The three eventually coalesced and began practicing; the chemistry proving fairly obvious from the outset. After only a few weeks of woodshedding, the band made its debut in front of an expectant audience at the 2001 Capitol Hill block party. High-profile slots playing alongside Cheap Trick, the New Pornographers, and Guided by Voices followed in quick succession as the general buzz on the trio grew exponentially with each appearance.
Warnick pulled double duty in two bands for a time, but in early 2002 she eventually felt enough faith in Visqueen to make the difficult decision and end her 23-year run fronting the Fastbacks.
"I didn't know how to quit that band. I didn't think you could. That was always a joke—you can't really quit the Fastbacks," says Warnick. "But as a lazy person, I didn't want to practice two times a day, and the songs Kurt [Bloch, Fastbacks guitarist] was writing were so good that I couldn't see not trying as hard as I should. Especially when all he wanted was more from everybody, and all I was ready to give was like 20 percent less. The writing was on the wall for me." While Warnick's decision meant the abrupt end to one of Seattle's best pop bands (the Fastbacks played their final gig last February), it also marked a beginning for another.
"YOU KNOW," says Warnick, pausing to sip her cocktail, "we've done this record two times. The one that's coming out is actually the second version."
True to her word, Visqueen's debut full-length King Me (released this week) was recorded twice, both times with producer Barrett Jones (Foo Fighters, Nirvana) at his Laundry Room Studios. The first pass was a fairly labored and arduous affair, as the group's work schedules forced them to complete the album piecemeal over an extended period of months.
"And we spent a lot of time on it, working with click tracks and pro-tools and all that. We were trying to do it the way everybody else does albums," laughs Hooker, "which, for us, wasn't a really good idea"—a fact that became painfully obvious upon playback.
"We're sitting there listening to it, and nobody wanted to say anything, but it was kinda boring. It just felt stale," adds Hooker.
For the second attempt, the group decided to do away with high-tech contrivances, click tracks, and carefully wrought recording. Instead, they bought a bunch of analog tape and a mess of beer and simply played.
