Many musicians claim being in a band is like having another job. Milwaukee’s (relatively new) rock trio WORK spell this out literally in their name.
Fronted by guitarist/vocalist Joe Cannon, WORK offers a rock guise filled with elements of jazz and "doom country," with prominent reverb-laden burning guitar lines, equally burning vocals and plenty of nervous energy. Jeff Brueggeman plays bass and contributes backing vocals, while Kavi Laud plays drums and also contributes backing vocals.
On Tuesday, Feb. 16, the band played on WMSE’s Local/Live. WORK’s second full-length, "Doing the Lords," came out on Friday, Feb. 26 (via Breadking), with the band hosting their record release show at Company Brewing on that date as well.
My Local/Live co-host (Cal Roach) and I initially asked, "Why name your band, WORK"? Cannon responded, "I was teaching a grad course, and one of my students referred to the end of the semester as 'descending into the workhole,' which I thought was a great name for a band, and then I thought about it more and more and more, and I was like, has anyone just name a band, work?"
Cannon added, "The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to just call it ‘work’. I did some hardcore Google-ing and couldn’t find anyone called work. There was a band in the '80s called The Work who were actually really good, but none were just 'WORK.'"
WORK played two live sets on Local/Live, featuring songs from their new album, and chatted in-depth on their recent tour, recordings and influences, including The Eyesores, which they chose to feature at the end of Local/Live for the "This Is Your Song" segment. For "This Is Your Song," the guest chooses one musician or group (and one song) that has influenced their own music.
WORK chose to play "Dashboard Lazarus" by The Eyesores from their 2002 release, "Bent at the Waist." Catch the full segment in the WMSE archives, and below, get Cannon’s take on why The Eyesores especially influence WORK’s work.
The lowdown
- Musician/Band: WORK
- WMSE’s Local/Live Date: Tuesday, February 16th, 2016
- "This Is Your Song" pick: "Dashboard Lazarus" by the Eyesores
- Interviewed: Joe Cannon (lead vocalist, guitarist)
What/when is your first memory of hearing this particular song?
Shortly after it came out. To be perfectly honest with you, there were songs on that record that I would have rather played [on the radio], but there was cussing ... so I think "Thousand Yard Stare" would have been my first choice on that record. I was playing in a garage punk band, the drummer of which also played in this band called Lozenge, which were deep into the experimental, freak-out scene in Chicago at the time. He played saw blades, a wok and a metal drum set ... I was fed a lot of really unusual music from them, and he gave me this album. He’s now the music editor of the Chicago Reader! When he gave me this album, I was absolutely destroyed by it. It came out in 2002, and I’ve probably listened to it once a week since then.
Was it the first song you listened to from this musician or group?
("Dashboard Lazarus") wasn’t; I selected that song in part because it was radio-friendly. When it comes down to it, it was the album. I think that whole album is fantastic: the way that the different songs are structured, the way the accordion melody and the guitars and all of the other instruments going on are brilliantly instrumented, the way that the songs flow into each other, using a combination of guitar feedback and strings and accordion and these really out of left-field melodies. Add the lyrics to that – that are pretty, pretty brutal in a good way – and it’s all intensely poetic and emotionally brutal.
In what specific way does this song or artist influence your own music?
I kind of was tickled by the idea of choosing this intensely instrumented album from an eight-piece. Here we are, a rock trio ... I’m influenced by the way they think about melody and the atmosphere of it and sometimes my [own] delving into the impossible of trying to make a three piece rock band have the kind of atmosphere you hear on an Eyesores record.
If you could ask this artist only one question, what would it be?
I’d probably ask to sit in on a practice and see how they do it — how they go from initial idea to completed work. Because after it was called The Eyesores, it became Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores, so he’s kind of the center of it, but he’s always got these intensely good musicians around him, so it would be interesting to see how all the contributions of the other instruments are.
The other albums they all put out all have a different feel to them. That’s why I like "Bent at the Waist" so much — you’ve got all of this really intense instrumentation, but it’s still really lush, but very frightening. But the other albums are a lot more understated, almost, in a raw, punked-out kinda way. There is less lushness, so when it’s quiet, it’s more quiet and focused on the melody and when it’s loud the kind of rasp comes out and hits you in the ways where Bent at the Waist doesn’t.
Have you ever seen a live show and did it meet your expectations?
I was in this garage punk band called The Afflictions, and we played with them once in Chicago and once in Providence. And yeah, they were exceptional both times.
Local/Live on WMSE airs every Tuesday on WMSE from 6 to 7 p.m. Listen live or in the archives at WMSE.org or simply tune your radio (in the Milwaukee area) to 91.7 FM at the 6 o’clock hour.
