Most everything in art is in some way a reaction to the trends that came before it. This is particularly true of pop music. In the beginning there was jazz and the blues, then came rock & roll, album-oriented rock, and punk followed by metal. Then grunge hit, and the vacuous post-grunge period until the early 2000s when the garage-rock revival rolled in. Essentially, this revival era was marked by a wave of new bands—the White Stripes, the Black Keys, the Kills, Death From Above 1979—who aimed to mirror the gritty, DIY aesthetic of under-regarded outfits from the late ’60s and early ’70s. All these were duos to boot.
Since those groups came to prominence, and as a direct result of their success, an idea has been planted in the public mind that a two-person outfit automatically equals stripped-down, fuzzed-out guitars pounding atop monotonous snare-driven beats. Local rockers Hobosexual may be a duo, but drummer Jeff Silva and vocalist/guitarist Ben Harwood are perhaps the most virulent reaction possible to that particular point of view.
With his outsize personality and bombastic performance style, Harwood shares more qualities with gregarious AC/DC guitarist Angus Young than with the outwardly morose Jack White. Well over six feet tall, with hair that hangs below his shoulders and a pretty impressive beard, he bears little resemblance to either. Meanwhile, Silva bangs the skins with all the force and technical acumen of, say, John Bonham. Together they manage to make more with less than any other group around.
It seems so many bands take on a calculated direction at the beginning of their career in the hope of attracting attention, but Hobosexual is more inclined to follow the craziest idea and worry later where it might take them. Their second record, Hobosexual II, released near the end of 2013, was a science-fiction concept record set in the year 2071 that aped the zany, larger-than-life aesthetic of so many 1980s action films and featured an album cover (an apocalyptic landscape full of menacing biker babes) that Harwood spent a full eight months designing with artist Adam Burke. Their merch even includes officially licensed action figures, like the “Hobo 1 Tour Van Playset” or the “Hobo 2 Super Jet.”
2014 was a real watershed year for Hobosexual. “It’s better than we ever could have expected,” Silva says. “We keep hitting these ceilings and then just keep jumping over them.” First came the release of their new record, which was met with near universal acclaim and is now entering its fourth printing. Then came a few buzz-generating sets at Sasquatch!, followed by the West Seattle Summer Fest and Bumbershoot.
“Usually you start with Block Party or Bumbershoot, then you hope for Sasquatch!,” Harwood continues. “To jump right over all of that and go straight to Sasquatch! with nothing other than merit was just huge for us.” Hobosexual performed one of the fest’s most notable sets, attracting a crowd that easily numbered in the low thousands around the Narwhal stage.
Time will only tell what the future holds for the duo, but they’re already well on their way to writing their next record. “We’re approaching it from a classical perspective,” says Harwood. “Not classical like ‘do-do-do-dooooo,’ but [more] like classic rock where you drop something completely monolithic.” He adds, “Whatever the next record becomes, it’s going to be even more ambitious, even more out-there, and even bigger than the last one. That’s just who we are.”
music@seattleweekly.com
HOBOSEXUAL With Ayron Jones and The Way, Jared James Nichols. The Crocodile, 2200 Second Ave., 441-4618, thecrocodile.com. $12 DOS. 21 and up. 8 p.m. Sat., Jan. 31.
