earpollution cool by proxy - diamond-fist werny

by Paul Goracke

In The Beginning

In 1989, Todd Werny moved across the country from Delaware to Seattle, with the specific intent of starting a band. He had no idea that Grunge would soon make Seattle the nation's rock Mecca--it just struck him as a city that could find room to support his musical ambitions.

Within the year he met Axel Mundi, a bass clarinetist who was focusing on a one-note meditational study called "Slow Gong." "I didn't necessarily not want a bass player," says Werny, "but everyone at the time was playing a really busy bass, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers." They put together a couple songs, then--looking for a drummer who wasn't a big "Seattle rock" drummer--called back Tim Soba, who had jammed with Werny once after meeting through "Musicians Wanted" ads.

"I was playing around all sorts of bands at the time," Soba recalls. "I'd tried out for Pearl Jam when they were Mookie Blaylock. I was really into that scene, but I never really fit well with it. There was a social and appearance aspect to it that I never quite locked into, and I couldn't keep afloat.

"At the time, I was in a band that was starting to get management and label interest, and Todd had me come back. He played this slow song, called 'There Are Diamonds,' and I almost cried. It was very powerful emotionally, like watching a sad movie.

"I felt I had a choice of two paths: this true, honest route, or what I was beginning to feel was a fake bullshit route with a bunch of jerks. They went on to get on a label, but Diamond-Fist Werny became bigger locally, and I don't regret it."

Surviving Grunge

Soon, the club scene was inundated with Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice in Chains clones. "We played with so many bands," recalls Werny, "every one of them sounding like Pearl Jam. It was like a gold rush; everyone was trying to cash in on that sound. The really surprising part is that none of those sound-alike bands really made it.

"We could get shows because all the bands sounded the same, but we stood out by being unique. We knew that there were people interested in something new, refreshing, different. That was our goal from the start: to be true to an artistic approach, to sound different. It's hard to objectively judge whether we've succeeded in that, but at least it was our intent."

According to their 1992 calendar, the band played almost 50 shows in clubs and cafes, developing a sizeable following. Incorporating visuals into their shows--working with artists Steve Hawks, Cully, Julius Brown ("the first computer-generated visuals in town!" exclaims Werny) and Stray Voltage--served to enhance their draw by making shows more of a complete "experience."

"We try to do the visuals every other show, but orchestrating it was such a major ordeal, and now...well, it's still a major ordeal." "That's what I'm trying to accomplish with school," adds Soba, who hopes to use his multimedia art skills to gather enough material of his own to allow the band to continue presenting their visuals even when schedules don't coincide with outside artists.

After releasing two self-produced tapes, a 7" single on Igloo Records, and appearing on several compilations, they signed with startup label Rudy Records to record their first full-length album. Werny's vocal style, combined with his own guitar and the stylings and tonalities of Mundi's bass clarinet, created a decidedly Eastern mood. Yet it is energetic, solid rock. Werny's crunching guitar and Soba's powerful rhythms keep barreling forward, but can change on a dime into a mellow, insistent beat--then back again to something that can whirl a dervish. Released in the fall of 1994 and received well by college radio stations, Diamond Fist Werny was very representative of their live sound.

Enchanted Parkway

As they continued to play live shows larger labels frequently expressed interest, but nothing ever came through. Two years later, they felt it was time to record a second album, but were also starting to feel a bit stagnant as a three-piece. Todd wanted to add an electronica element, possibly even a bass player, and they decided to invite Rudy co-founder Kevin Tone to join. Tone, who co-produced their debut, records live sessions for local radio station KNDD, "The End," and has done live sound for Third Eye Blind, Cake, and Garbage.

The next year was spent incorporating him into the band and recording the new album, Enchanted Parkway, in his studio. "We recorded it all digitally," he says. "It's almost easier to do a record that way...with samples and loops; but it takes longer, so we took our time. The electronic aspect has always been there in the music. We just brought it out and didn't even try to capture the live sound like the first record."

Werny adds, "Concentrating on the electronic sound and recording digitally has allowed us to give the tracks to local DJs for remixing. I've heard some of the results, and they sound fantastico!"

On two of the album's six songs ("Golden" and "Plato's Cave") they did try to get a bit more of a live sound by having them produced by Kevin Suggs at Avast! studios. Suggs, an "Alternative Country specialist," as Werny refers to him, is responsible for the band's live sound engineering, and has produced many others such as the Walkabouts, and Goodness. "Now that we're putting together our live show for this album," says Tone, "we're finding a strong rock element and live energy starting to come out of the songs."

Driving, eclectic rhythms with a strong ethnic reference, electronica mixed with woodwind (Mundi adds saxophones to his clarinet on the album), and a mellow, positive vibe make Diamond-Fist Werny's sound comfortably unique. "I'd say Todd's voice is our strongest aspect," claims Tone, "...and probably our weakest, too, because nobody seems to know what to do with us. It's hard to put us in a category with just a couple words of description, so we tend to fall between the cracks."

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