VALLEY PRESS

Lashes wrap up busy week in L.A.

By JULIE DRAKE Valley Press Staff Writer

By the time you read this, Seattle band The Lashes will have played two dates in Hollywood and another one in San Diego. Tonight they play Las Vegas and on Friday it's back to California for a show at Spaceland in Silverlake.

"It's not the first time we've been down here, certainly, but we kind of always try and do that thing where, you know, we play an all-ages show and we try to do a cool bar show. So it's good to have three things in one week," Lashes keyboardist Jacob Hoffman said in a telephone interview on Monday.

Friday's show won't be the first time The Lashes have played the popular Silverlake music venue. They've appeared on its tiny stage three or four times previously.

"It's so cool, you feel like you're at a junior high school talent show because it has those kind of old, shiny curtains behind it and stuff like that," Hoffman said. "We like to play intimate places like that too because it's easier to connect with people and it's just fun."

The Lashes released an EP titled "The Stupid Stupid" on Lookout Records and will have their major label debut, "Get It," released on Columbia Records on Feb. 21. Their catchy tunes are reminiscent of such '70s power pop acts like The Knack and The Raspberries.

The band has built upon its fanbase by near-constant touring and appearances at high profile events like the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City and South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas.

The sextet got its start more than five years ago after lead singer Ben Clark moved to Seattle from Spokane, Wash. Back then The Lashes were a four-piece band but over time and after nearly a dozen drummers they morphed into a six-piece with band members who
grew up in small towns from Wasilla, Alaska to Fremont, Neb.

Hoffman joined the band about two years ago with guitar player Scotty Rickard, turning the four-piece into a six-piece band. The Lashes also feature Nate Mooter on bass guitar and Eric Howk on guitar. The guys in the band are all good friends who spend a lot of time together and share living quarters (a cramped warren of tiny rooms in a north Seattle basement).

"We wanted to make sure we got the right chemistry not just in terms of music but people that we actually wanted to hang out with," Hoffman said.

The Lashes' name is a leftover from frontman Ben Clark's ex-girlfriend, who wanted to start a "girl gang" similar to the Pink Ladies in "Grease." She named her group The Lashes and eventually performed in a band under that name with Clark, who kept the name after the relationship ended.

"We really like it because of the double nature of it," Hoffman said. "People are always asking us, is it one or the other, is it eyelashes or lashes with a whip? We try never to answer one way or the other because it's cooler to be vague."

The Lashes will take a couple of weeks off for Christmas and are due to go back on the road in January and will be on the road when their record is released.

"We really like playing those small places and it's something that we know if we're as successful as we want to be, then we won't have as many opportunities to play these small shows so we're kind of just like eating as many of these up as much as we can," Hoffman
said.

If the new album takes off, The Lashes could soon find themselves playing much larger venues.

"We're ready for that, we want that to happen, so it's just a matter of enjoying what we have, while we have it."