Throwaway Style is a monthly column dedicated to spotlighting the artists of the Pacific Northwest music scene through the age-old practice of longform feature writing. Whether it’s an influential (or overlooked) band or solo artist from the past, someone currently making waves in their community (or someone overlooked making great music under everybody’s nose), or a brand new act poised to bring the scene into the future; this space celebrates the community of musicians that makes the Pacific Northwest one of a kind, every month from KEXP.
This month’s column features the Seattle garage punk quintet Fan Club, the band formerly known as Lysol. In the living room of the band’s shared living and performance space, known as “the Club House,” Martin Douglas spoke with four of Fan Club’s five members about the band’s lengthy history, participating in Seattle’s DIY and punk scenes, changing sound along with their name, how a certain European punk band influenced their new direction, and much more.
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“This isn’t a punk house; it’s a house that punks live in,” says Fan Club guitarist Chad Ringo Bucklew.
I’m being given a tour of the venue/rehearsal/living space affectionately known as the Club House. Tucked away on a one-way street in Seattle’s U District and cornered by two car dealerships, the Club House is proof positive that there is truth in advertising—as it serves as a real-life headquarters for the long-running, ever-shifting Seattle punk band Fan Club. But aside from a pile of clothes of undetermined cleanliness on singer Noah Earl Fowler’s bed, the Club House has none of the gross, squatty trappings of a traditional punk house. As Bucklew mentions above upon my observation, it’s not a punk house, it’s a punk home.
Fowler’s room is a curtained-off space in the basement corner just outside of the band’s practice area. Bucklew and drummer Anthony Gaviria have bedrooms on the main floor. (Gaviria quickly closed his bedroom door and apologized when Bucklew first offered the tour of the house, reluctant to let a guest observe the mess.) A recently-built outdoor stage sits behind the neighboring house. Bucklew notes the neighbors are friends of theirs, along with their neighbor’s neighbors; an unofficial, punk-leaning HOA. Gaviria made an elaborate shrine proudly displayed on the shelving in the dining room. Also in the dining room is a chunk of ceiling some friends of theirs accidentally broke during a gathering. Of course, it is autographed for posterity. A chihuahua mix named Otis barks at everything within earshot of the house.
Gathered in the living room with Bucklew, Gaviria, Fowler, and recently-added guitarist Ken Maddy—bassist Elysa Winchester-Pfeiffer, who lives just outside Boise, is minutes from touching down at Sea-Tac International Airport when we begin the interview to join the band for a short tour—I set the mic on the coffee table after realizing that passing it between the five of us for the next hour won’t work.
In the beginning, there was Freak Vibe. In an interview with the punk rock Tumblr site Stipulated Conflict, the band describes Freak Vibe’s sound as driving toward the Cramps and the Stooges… and taking a wrong turn and ending up at The Birthday Party. The long-defunct Seattle garage-punk band’s best songs (or maybe the ones someone with my particular tastes would enjoy the most) are the jams that veer closer to the Cramps aesthetic. Filthy, grimy rock ‘n roll; the soundtrack of shitty dive bars with $3 tall boys and bathrooms rife with graffiti and broken toilets.
Freak Vibe released a trio of four-song EPs that are all worth a listen, but their final release, 2014’s Prostration, is the document of a band truly finding their sound. The band splits the difference quite nicely between nasty blues riffs and punk songs with nagging, nervous energy. (Here’s a freebie for anyone who has a rock ‘n roll DJ night: “Naxolone” is your new secret weapon.)
Due to personal issues, Bucklew, Gaviria, and Xtine Lundberg disbanded Freak Vibe and agreed to start a new band together. “It had just become a real drag,” says Bucklew of Freak Vibe. After the aforementioned members split from the band’s singer, they invited Gabriel Gutierrez—a former member of the great art-punk band VATS and one-time resident of locally beloved DIY hub Office Space.
From there, they started to think about their sound. “Have you heard of Brown Sugar?” Bucklew asks me. “[They played] just, like, garage riffs, but played like a hardcore band. But instead of doing single note hits, [I would use] big barre chords, like the fucking Gories or something, you know?”
This band, fully formed in their vision, called themselves Lysol. Intellectual property theft from a major corporation remains among the most punk of punk activities.
Somewhere between Lysol’s demos circulating in 2015 and the release of the band’s debut full-length, 2021’s Soup for My Family, Gutierrez was replaced on vocals by Fowler. And it’s not that one singer was better than the other; your preference of vocalist in this case comes down to whether you want to hear a spew of bile or an insistent bark. Musically, the degrees of separation are even more infinitesimal. Bucklew adds, “The last songs we were writing as Freak Vibe were starting to sound like [what] Lysol [became] anyway. We were already gravitating towards more of a garage sound.”
As they shifted in style from Freak Vibe to Lysol, Seattle itself had been slowly shifting as well. The story of the city’s jarring transitional changes have been exhaustively documented (in this column and elsewhere), so it would be redundant to once again gripe about how tech money has all but completely scrubbed out the punks, starving artists, much of its robust-yet-somehow-overlooked Black community, and even many segments of the city’s middle class. Or at least turning the “middle class” into something completely different than it would be in more affordable cities. All in all, the members of Fan Club don’t find the experience of running DIY shows and being in a punk band that much different than it was a decade ago.
“We book shows here [at the Club House],” Bucklew says. “10 years ago, we were booking shows at our house and touring, and we’re still [doing the same].”
Maddy adds, “You had these DIY spaces that had more capacity [back then]. It was a community staple; you can always congregate there. The venues are always going to exist [in some form], [like the] old Black Lodge and stuff like that.”
“I mean, that’s just how culture works,” says Bucklew. “Things always ebb and flow.”
Fowler notes, “People specifically move here from all around the country to try and be in a band. Which is something really unique and something I think we take for granted.”
“Things have just evolved,” Gaviria says. “There’s not as much punk rock in the city. The kids like JNCO pants and face paint. We’re just going through a wave where punk isn’t that cool. Rock and roll is for old people.”
For a band that has members who were active participants in helping run a DIY space—there was once a warehouse on Capitol Hill called Nuthole, which could fit around 300 bodies—the members of Fan Club have an intrinsic knowledge of how cyclical culture is. And how much faster it spins as we enter a new quarter of the 21st Century. Beware, Gen Z cool kids who say skinny jeans are passé: the Strokes sent the baggy pants-wearing nu-metal contingent packing up boxes in the very back of Zumiez stock rooms at the turn of the millennium.
Generations of youth always end up bringing back the bygone culture they deserve. And every time someone says punk is dead, it crawls out from underneath the cabinets like a cockroach.
Soup for My Family, Lysol’s debut full-length—and at press time, the only LP either Freak Vibe, Lysol, or Fan Club have released to date—remains the ideal meld of hardcore and garage the band had been searching for since the doors closed on Freak Vibe. The wide-eyed fury of “Disinfectant,” the wild tempo shifts throughout, and Olympia music mainstay Dave Harvey’s saxophone helping close out the album on its instrumental title track are all emblematic of the band’s initial creative vision.
Not to mention there are back-to-back songs (“Blessures Graves” and “Ego Death”) that don’t even take up a minute of running time. Brevity is the soul of wit and punk music.
Both Soup for My Family and its follow-up, the thrilling seven-inch EP Down the Street (total running time: five minutes and 52 seconds), were released on Feel It Records, one of the most reputable rock labels in America today. The connection was fostered through a band Lundberg (bassist for Lysol) and Winchester-Pfieffer (bassist for Fan Club) shared, the wonderful Olympia garage-punk band Stiff Love. The present members who were in Lysol (note: everyone currently participating in this interview except Ken Maddy, who returned to the area from Chicago in part to join Fan Club) all have kind things to say about not just Feel It owner Sam Richardson, but also the brick-and-mortar store of the same name in Cincinnati, and the “five-way,” a dish specific to the Ohio city.
Gaviria says, “It’s like white trash bolognaise; it’s spaghetti with chili—and then a mountain of shredded cheese that’s not even melted.”
The exposure from being on Feel It never hindered Lysol from being Lysol. Mostly because the band largely avoided putting the band’s name on their cover art. For instance, on the cover of Soup for My Family, the name Lysol is only on the hype sticker slapped atop the plastic wrapping the record sleeve.
Although Lysol never got a cease-and-desist order from the company that owns the household cleaning brand—unlike the all-time great Swiss punk band Kleenex, who were forced to change their name to LiLiPUT—that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing the entire ride.
“We were called Lysol for 10 years, and the whole time we were looking over our shoulders,” says Bucklew. “When we were younger, we cared less. Because I was like, ‘What are you gonna do? We don’t have anything, you gonna take our couch?’ Now we have more skin in the game. I’m a business owner, you know? If I got hit with a lawsuit, it would rock our shit a little bit.”
Bucklew runs Wild Love Tattoos, tucked away in a curve on Leary Ave. They owned the shop for only a few months before it was decided Lysol shouldn’t play with fire when it came to not-exactly-legal branding. Have you ever sprayed Lysol into a fire? Bad things can happen.
Thus, the latest transition of the band—from Lysol to Fan Club—was complete. Its members had been discussing leaning farther into the garage rock side of Lysol’s split personality and less into hardcore punk. The change suited them. They mentioned they hadn’t been writing much since Down the Street was tracked, but Bucklew and Fowler estimate that they’ve written around 40 songs in the year since they christened the name Fan Club.
Nobody expected such a worthy successor to Mudhoney to come out of the woodwork while the Seattle garage punk legends are still very much active, but it’s safe to say that Fan Club came to the race early to grab the proverbial baton. Fan Club’s pummeling iteration of Northwest-flavored garage punk came from one particular source of inspiration. Bucklew gave it away without much coaxing: “Anthony and Noah went to see the Hives.”
Gaviria confirms this acknowledgement: “[I] was very inspired. It was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever been to in my life. I just wanted to be [in a band] more like that: More accessible to larger crowds, more fun.”
“I almost didn’t go,” admits Fowler. “I was in my pajamas; I had just taken a shower. And Anthony was like, ‘Hey, you wanna go see the Hives?”
The Swedish punk band—formed over 30 years ago and breaking through in the United States with their second full-length, 2000’s Veni Vidi Vicious—is certainly one of the bands in the global rock scene that has best emphasized garage rock as entertainment, and a band I can safely say everybody should see at least once in their lives. Gaviria had a conversation with Bucklew and Fowler after a show in Seattle last year where he proposed the idea, “What if we ripped off the Hives more?” Bucklew acknowledged that what the Hives were doing wasn’t too much different from Lysol.
It’s easy to hear the stylistic change between Lysol and Fan Club on their pair of 2024 EPs, Demonstration 2024 and Another Demonstration 2024, released almost four months apart. As the saying goes, the band is playing to the very back of the venue, exhibiting a high-wattage charisma in every aspect of the music. You can practically hear Fowler strutting around the room as they howl and shout, or Bucklew thwacking guitar strings while miraculously avoiding snapping them all, or Gaviria and Winchester-Pfeiffer banging away in lockstep as the rhythm section. The songs are tighter and simpler, engineered for maximum impact. And the entertainment factor picked up from the Hives is there in full force. Also in the spirit of the veteran Swede punks, Fan Club also wear “uniforms” onstage, which include black denim jackets with their names embroidered on them.
Bucklew admits the band doesn’t really care for the songs on the first Demonstration. “The plan was originally to do three demos and put them all on an LP,” they say. “By the time we wrote the second demo, we were like, ‘Oh, we like this one a lot more than the first one.’ People really like some of the songs we don’t like anymore.”
Adds Maddy, “It’s a progression, right? The demos serve as a slice of a time period. [That was] the first batch of demos when the band first changed the name. And now, we’re testing the waters out, going further. That’s the whole recording process, you’re cataloguing what you’re doing during a certain time period.”
In April, the band released an EP titled Ain’t No Saint, a rerecorded version of their favorite songs from their 2024 demos. Sure, they’re the same songs, but they’re given the benefit of having been fine-tuned live. The group, as you might imagine, has toured quite a bit and played a lot of local shows in the past year, and it’s not difficult to tell that live performances are the bedrock of this band. We chatted for a bit about the long drives on West Coast tours and how the band prefers touring the East Coast because they never have to drive longer than three or four hours to hit the next major city. Being able to wake up at noon the day after a show also has its advantages.
As this well-traveled band keeps things rolling—a new EP called Stimulation, which Bucklew describes as “five faster, hardcore songs; kind of like a Lysol record,” and an LP in the works—the members of Fan Club are working off of the momentum they have spent the past few years gathering. The band played the Punk Rock Bowling festival just days before this feature was written, and they have big plans to tour Latin America and Japan. At some point, they’re going to take some time off to record Fan Club’s “debut” LP, but for the most part, they’re enthralled with performing live and want to do as much of that as possible. And like a true punk band, they’re doing it all for the love of the game.
“I feel like if we didn’t love it, we’d be working at Microsoft or Google or something,” Fowler says. “Honestly, if we wanted to make money, we’d be doing something else. Straight up.”
Last week on May 22nd, as we have for the past few years, KEXP observed World Goth Day (which you can re-visit in the two-week streaming archive until June 5). It’s a celebration of darkness, a chance to embrace the macabre, a day to wear black on the outside whether or not it’s how you feel on the inside. Because of Throwaway Style’s publication schedule, I wasn’t able to parktake in the festivities in the column prior to the day of black roses. That’s why I’ve dedicated this month’s Northwest Albums Roundup to spotlighting some choice goth acts from around the region.
The solo project of Seattle punk and metal scene veteran Parker Lautenschlager, Profit Prison is the product of a situation you’ve definitely heard of before: What happens when a musician well versed in extreme music goes pop? Profit Prison’s 2024 opus GILT can be favorably compared to Talk Talk or your favorite darkwave band to namedrop when you’re chatting with your black-and-lace-clad friends, eight songs sure to light up the dancefloor at your favorite goth club night.
Straight from the muddy banks of Capitol Lake (pro tip: don’t swim in it), Olympia’s Torment in Tyranny is a product of the bountiful hardcore punk scene that has been ever-present in Washington State’s capital city. The band’s 2023 LP is an anxiety-inducing swirl of industrial-inspired guitar and D-beat fury, with feel-good-hit titles like “Assisted Suicide,” “Fratricide,” and “Don’t Shoot.” Torment in Tyranny is definitely one for the goths who like to get their elbows scraped from going too hard in the pit.
I’m gonna venture to guess that if you’re into Seattle’s goth scene, you’re already pretty familiar with burgeoning local stars Dark Chisme. A two piece featuring the talents of DJ, electronic producer, and vocalist Christine Gutiérrez and multi-instrumentalist Erik “E” Schneider, Dark Chisme’s self-titled debut (released last summer and still getting plenty of burn around the city) is an immersive and immaculately produced LP that combines darkwave with subtle, Latin American-influenced rhythms. And if you’re not already aware of Dark Chisme, I enthusiastically recommend this interview with my colleague Albina Cabrera for our podcast A Deeper Listen.
As a longtime resident and noted obsessive of the Pacific Northwest region, if you were to tell me that Wenatchee (of all places!) is the home of one of its greatest goth-rock bands, I may have cast a very suspicious eye on you. But now that I think about it—and given its past reputation as both a hotbed of antidepressant use and a Ku Klux Klan hub—it’s probably a depressing enough place to live to be the wellspring for dozens of goth bands. The trio Datura’s latest full-length, last month’s Songs from a Dark House, is kind of a banger no matter how you slice it; rife with great songs perfect for people who can accurately pinpoint the differences between Interpol and Joy Division.
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