Less-traveled path pays off

Lots and lots and lots of bands move to Seattle from Spokane on the tail of a dream to get signed to a big-time label.

Very few actually make it.

Ben Clark is a proud Whitworth College dropout.

While he hasn’t yet figured out how to make a career of skate- boarding and going to Taco Bell, he’s doing the next best thing: He’s getting paid to rock. The Spokane native and his Seattle rock band The Lashes sealed a deal with Columbia Records earlier this week.

“My parents have always been supportive, but there were times when they worried, like what if it didn’t work out – and secretly I felt the same way – but I never wanted to wonder what might have happened, so I put everything into it without regrets,” Clark said during a telephone interview from Seattle.

After five years and 18 different Lashes (11 drummers alone), The Lashes – lead singer Clark, guitarist Scotty Rickard (formerly of Spokane’s Rockness Monsters), bassist Nate Mooter (also of Rockness Monsters), guitarist Eric Howk, keyboardist Jacob Hoffman and drummer Mike Loggins – have made it to the majors.

Since contract negotiations began, “I’ve cried, I’ve jumped up and down, I’ve been very – no pun intended – stoic. I don’t know how to feel,” Clark said.

The pun is a reference to Clark’s high school band, The Stoics.

The Stoics played around town and in Pullman at the legendary Crime Lair party house when I was a student at Washington State University.

With The Stoics, Clark dressed as Pee Wee Herman and pulled so many whacky antics during live shows, he covered up the fact that he played the same power chords over and over.

“Back then, we thought if we dressed up and had crazy things going on onstage, no one would pay attention to the music,” Clark said.

The sloppy garage rock sound that started with The Stoics has graduated to catchy dirt-pop swank, á la The Lashes’ August EP release, “The Stupid Stupid” on Lookout Records (Green Day, Ted Leo and Operation Ivy). The stand-out cut, “Death By Mixtape,” gets regular burn on Seattle’s 107.7 KNDD The End (download music by The Lashes at www.spokane7.com/ soundwave).

While the musicianship is debatably the key improvement, Clark’s quirky showmanship and lust for attention has resulted in genius-level self-promotional prowess. The guy is a total ham, and what else would you expect from the son of Spokesman-Review columnist and Trailer Park Girls front man Doug Clark?

One of The Lashes’ finest moments happened when it out-hyped Sub Pop Records at the infamous indie music Mecca’s birthday party at the Crocodile Café in Seattle.

Clark and the gang paid an art school friend with pizza to put on a fake beard, pretend to be a deranged fan and stand outside the Sub Pop party with a picket sign that read: “Sub Pop sign The Lashes.”

Then, they rounded up all the neighborhood homeless people and drug dealers and paid them $1 each to do the same.

Word got around at the party, and the art school kid got invited inside to have a drink with the president of Sub Pop, Jonathan Poneman.

Meanwhile, Clark watched from the shadows down the street, disguised in a wig and baseball cap.

“The intention was never to get signed, but to create a buzz,” Clark said. “I never wanted to be in a band to get a neutral reaction; I want to invoke passion either way, positive or negative.”

The Lashes have seen as much good response as bad. Clark said that for a while The Lashes were hated by what seemed to be the entire hipster community in Seattle. But it has won over once-reluctant critics (“It’s Your Party,” the track dedicated to The Stranger columnist Kathleen Wilson, made a fan out of the former nemesis), and eventually earned a home at a major label.

Clark wouldn’t disclose how much money he’ll be getting out of the deal, but he did say the band will get new equipment, a new van and tour support.

“I’ll be able to eat again. And maybe buy some new shoes,” he said. “As long as I’m playing music and eating, I’m happy.”

Look for a full length Columbia release from The Lashes next year.