CITY LIFE

Delay gratification
The Lashes have been waiting patiently for their moment

BY JEFF INMAN

At one point or another you have probably been rude Ben Clark. Very rude. You might have told him to screw off. Hung up on him. Suggested he die a slow and painful death. Or just hoped his job got outsourced to India. And it's OK. You didn't know it was him -- or for that matter, one of the other five members of the Seattle-based pop gang, the Lashes. You just heard some telemarketer asking you for cash. And while it was for worthy causes, "We all worked for this nonprofit place," the frontman admits, you still secretly wished a swarm of fire ants would start devouring Clark's limbs. Just like he prayed you'd be covered in boils even while he politely said, "Thank you."

"That place just sucked," says Clark, bluntly. "Whether you're trying to sell a set of knives or asking for money for AIDS research, it all just sucked. You'd go to work all happy, living your punk rock life, and then you'd spend eight hours checking boxes that said, 'Not interested, not interested, not interested' or, 'Yelled at me, yelled at me.' You don't come out of there happy. But it's what you do to write songs, be in this band and make this happen."

And all that telephonic soul-sucking is just moments from paying off. The Lashes have been struggling for the last five years. There have been strings of crappy jobs. Hall-closet apartments that all six guys have shared. Mediocre shows. Strange amounts of local hatred. And at least one near heart attack for the entire collective when, after spending a year prepping for the release of the band's major label debut, the sprightly and bouncing Get It, its record label (Columbia) told the group it was bumping its disc.

"That didn't feel good," says Clark. There was so much damn heartbreak there for awhile, Clark and his crew even penned a song about the desperation -- the angular and strutting "Please, Please, Please," which features Clark begging like a kid in Santa's lap: "Please, please, please, let me get what I want, right now, today."

Sadly, Clark has to wait a few more months. Get It now comes out in February. "And I know that for sure now because I'm approving art work and doing interviews. It's going to happen," he says.

But more importantly, it's worth the wait. Get It is the kind of album that can make the nerds and the jocks get along. Have the cheerleaders dancing with the punks. The band geeks feeling less geeky. All because the Lashes can come up with the kind of chorus that's both indie-kid cool and is as massive as the Superdome. "Safe to Say," for instance, is like taking Hot Hot Heat's keyboard-based wiggle grooves and dunking them in a vat of Cheap Trick toxic waste, creating some superhuman pop monster. "Dear Hollywood" is a swooning power ballad that adds pomp and distortion to the best moments of the Ben Folds Five. The Lashes' love of '80s bands such as the Cars comes out in tracks like "Nate's Song" and "Yesterday Feels like a Year" -- just if Ric Ocasek was backed by Weezer. And "Sometimes the Sun" plays like the Strokes if they weren't so concerned with being taken seriously.

"We're just pop-obsessed people," says Clark. "We all grew up loving pop songs and paying attention to the songwriting, even if it was something like, 'Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got love in my tummy.' It's just ingrained in us now." And as far as using that ingrained knowledge to beg for pop stardom: Well, with great power comes great responsibility. "All those bands that worry about cred never get any, and we don't really care if we have any," he says. "We've never worried about anyone thinking we're selling out or something. When you want to be the Beatles, you have to go for it, no matter what shitty job you have to work to do it."