THE BLAKES

Seattle’s vagabond rockers on bad band names, bean counting, touring with the Kills, the Gossip.

“Who’s this? This shit is good!” – Iggy Pop

Five years after picking up a drummer at a coffeeshop in Seattle, booking their own cross-country tours from a Los Angeles motel room (with band practice at highway truck stops), and flirting with names like Johnny Rockstar and Call Us Girls, the Blakes have found themselves in Paris with the Kills and the Gossip. It’s been a long journey for Snow and Garnet Keim, and Bob Husak, but the trio’s brand of ’60s-summoning rock—which staggers from asperous garage guitars to swaggering New Wave rhythms—wouldn’t have the same appeal had the Blakes not spent so much time on the road…or named their band after 18th-century romantic poet William Blake.

What bands influenced you guys early on?
A lot of early rock ’n’ roll like the Everlys and Fats Domino, and then of course the Beatles, Stones, and Kinks. Also Ash, Sex Pistols, Ramones…you name it.

You guys considered tons of crazy band names before becoming the Blakes. What is the story behind the name?
Bleu, Pink Junior, Wellzone, Johnny Rockstar, Call Us Girls—man these suck. Of course none them stuck at all. Garnet had a dream that we would be the Blakes after he saw an art exhibit for William Blake. Some say your destiny can be found in your dream state…

You guys have been really D.I.Y. from the start. How important is this to you still, now that you¹ve got a good label and have ‘made it?’
It's nice to have someone else take the reigns and do the grunt work, while we just have to show up, plug in, and play. Actually, it's great to be freed up to work on creative things; we're not very good bean counters.

“Two Times” and “Streets’ are your most downloaded tracks. What are your own favorite songs?
We all have our favorites—Snow likes "Pistol Grip" because we can't fuck it up live. And it lacks a standard verse-chorus formula but it still works. It's a bit chaotic.

You¹ve bounced around from the East coast to Canada to L.A. to Seattle. What music scene is your favorite?
We really like the scene in Seattle, but now we're kind of developing a network of cities and venues that we enjoy playing. We're loving Paris right now, and also San Francisco and New York are winners.

What would you be if you weren¹t musicians?
Bank managers and/or produce farmers.

SAMANTHA GILEWICZ

myspace.com/theblakes



This story was published on March 25, 2008.