Jesse Smith was slinging hash at the old Croc in 2007 when he told Seattle Weekly that “the chubby, hairy-guy thing is really going to blow up the music scene in ’07. Mark my words.”
Three years later, chubby-and-hairy has yet to go out of fashion, and Seattle beards have reached a wider audience. Thanks to diplomats like Fleet Foxes, who brought the fuzz to Saturday Night Live, and Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell, who flew his robin’s nest south, the world now knows what kind of quality to expect from the Seattle scene’s all-season facial hair.
In fact, as we celebrate the second annual Beard & Stache Fest this week—a competition among 100 of the city’s scruffiest—we’re reminded that the local music community puts on its own hirsute festival 365 nights a year. Here’s a look at some of the beards and ‘staches that have scratched the city’s sonic surface, before and after Smith’s prescient prediction.
BEARD IDENTIFICATION
1. Lesbian
2. Zach Tillman, Pearly Gate Music
3. Ben Bridwell, Band of Horses
4. Shaun Libman, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
5. Robin Pecknold, Fleet Foxes
6. Sir Thomas Gray, Champagne Champagne
7. Macklemore
8. Jeff Keenan, Feral Children
9. Evan LeSure, sound engineer at Neumos
10. Krist Novoselic
11. David Bazan
12. John Roderick
13. Steve Turner, Mudhoney
14. Chris Zasche, Maldives and Grand Hallways
15. Jesse Lortz, The Dutchess and the Duke
16. Ra Scion, Common Market
17. Tim Seely
18. Mat Brooke, Grand Archives
19. Jesse Sykes with Rick Rubin’s beard
20. Jared Price, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
21. Thomas Hunter, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground
22. Kim Thayil, Soundgarden
23. Peter Quirk, the Cave Singers
24. J. Tillman
25. Jimi Hendrix
26. Eric Elbogen, Say Hi
27. Morgan Henderson, Past Lives
28. Ryan Devlin, the Whore Moans
29. Reggie Watts
30. Kevin Barrans, the Tallboys
31. Seth Warren, the Maldives
