I don’t have to tell you that Seattle has changed a lot since 1999. The meteoric rise of Amazon and Big Tech has left parts of the city almost unrecognizable, rents have skyrocketed, popular music venues have come and gone, and hundreds of Northwest bands have risen to fame and disbanded. Amid this ever-changing process, however, one institution remains strong: Northwest pop-punk legends Fastbacks.
“Just like the Space Needle and Dick’s, fastbacks are always there and just as iconic,” said Seattle musician Rick Friel, who has played with the likes of the Rockfords and Goodness. “Their independent, playful spirit, can-do attitude and sense of humor are exactly what defines the Northwest.”
On August 28, bassist and singer Kim Warnick, guitarist Kurt Bloch, guitarist and singer Lulu Gargiulo and drummer Michael Musburger will release For what reason!, the band’s first album in 25 years. And the songs are as good – if not better! – as ever. The 11 tracks are packed with catchy hooks, ripping guitar solos and that signature Fastbacks sound that makes your cheeks hurt from laughing and singing along. Over the years they’ve released albums on Sub Pop and Pop Llama, but this one will be self-released on Bloch’s No Three’s Records label.
“The idea of finding a record label and someone to release our record just seemed ridiculous to me,” Musburger said, laughing. “Ridiculous.”
Although they were never really a household name compared to some of their late ’80s and early ’90s contemporaries like Alice in Chains or Soundgarden (and they say that was definitely never their goal either), Fastbacks are one of the bands whose power pop-punk sound earned them a cult-like following among music fans and peers alike. (And before you go off saying, like the world’s most insufferable Pixies fans, “There’s no ‘that,’ it’s just Fastbacks,” you should know that whether you call them Fastbacks or The Fastbacks, the band assured me there is no wrong answer – they are interchangeable.)
“The Fastbacks are the most Seattle band ever,” said Ben London. As executive director of Sonic Guild Seattle and a musician who has performed and recorded with everyone from Alcohol Funnycare to the Gits and Stag to Saint Bushmill’s Choir, he’s heard plenty of local rock. “They’re like the island of misfit toys formed a band and wrote a million songs mocking everyone else for not being outsiders.”
For me, a lifelong diehard fan of Northwest rock, meeting the Fastbacks for coffee in the quirky C&P coffee shop-converted house in West Seattle was a dream come true.
Sitting down next to these four, I immediately felt the sisterly bond between the members. They finish each other’s sentences, tell self-deprecating inside jokes, and tell wonderful stories, like the time in 1979 when Bloch got to see a young Judas Priest open at the Paramount, then raced to the Seattle Center Coliseum to see Van Halen, only to sneak back into the Paramount to see a UFO set headlining.
For founding members Bloch, Gargiulo and Warnick, this bond goes back more than 45 years, to their time at Nathan Hale High School.
Gargiulo and Warnick were friends before their band began rehearsing in the basement in 1979. The two met Bloch in class a few years later and started a small photography business together. Musburger joined the crew in 1992. By then, he was already a seasoned touring musician as a founding member of the Posies and Love Battery. While the Fastbacks are notorious for having a rotating lineup behind the drum kit – Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses filled that role for a while in the ’80s – Musburger says he is now the longest-tenured drummer in the band’s history.
“It’s like having a family that you’re with your whole life,” says Gargiulo.
“Even without the fastbacks, we would all be friends,” adds Musburger.
When the topic of the rock boom in Seattle in the early 1990s comes up, Bloch immediately comes up with a joke.
“I’m not saying we had anything against the major label stuff, it just didn’t work. There were plenty of them. It would be interesting to talk to them now and ask them, ‘Why didn’t you like that band?'”
Gargiulo jokingly called for a new approach to reporting.
“So, I’m calling on behalf of the Fastbacks and I just have this question… Why not them?’ Yes, maybe that should be the name of the next record. Why not them?”
So why are the Fastbacks releasing a new record after 25 years? Nobody has offered them absurd amounts of money for their reunion, and millions of fans aren’t (yet) asking for more after hearing an old song go viral on TikTok.
It turns out it’s pretty simple.
A little over a year ago, the four friends met for lunch to pick up some LPs that Bloch was reissuing. Things escalated quickly from there.
“Kim said, ‘We should make a new album.’ That’s what the guys always say,” says Bloch. “I always say, ‘No, we shouldn’t make a new record.'”
But rather than leave it at that, Musburger called a longtime friend of the band, Joe Reineke, and asked if he could book a time at his Seattle studio, Temple of the Trees. He happened to have a few days off in about a month. Surely enough time to write and record a Fastbacks record, right?
“So we had to do it,” says Warnick. “(We said) ‘Well, I guess we’ve booked two days of studio time now. We’d better do that.'”
In the past, Bloch has had to do much of the work – “because he has to do everything. If it happens, it’s on him,” Musburger says – but this time was different. Warnick brought some material, including the first single, “Come On,” and they had an unreleased B-side to work with. They even revived a song they recorded in 2002 by re-recording the drums. That track, “The World Inside,” closes the album and, at just over seven minutes long, deviates from the band’s usual 120-second sonic explosion of cheerfully jazzed-up punk formula.
Putting aside the jokes and stories about Seattle’s rock’n’roll past, you can tell the band members are genuinely excited about the end result. There are no media-savvy and memorized PR campaign responses, just real, raw energy and joy.
“(For what reason!) sounds amazing,” says Gargiulo. “Even though we are really old, there is this youthful energy that is somehow inside of us.”
“The only thing that’s different is the songwriting. I think it’s gotten a little better,” Warnick adds.
Although they don’t plan on doing any more live shows — shows are stressful and just not as fun as they used to be, they say — you can still get that old-school Fastbacks feel at their official album release party and book signing on August 29 at Easy Street Records. The band says there will be a panel discussion moderated by McKagan and “questionable answers.”
Your enthusiasm for For what reason! also extends into the future. When asked whether it will take another 25 years for a successor after 25 years of waiting for this album, Warnick is optimistic.
“I hope not.”
The Fastbacks will host For what reason! Listening and signing event at Easy Street Records on Thursday, August 29th at 7pm. Admission is free and open to all ages.
