Where are they now Part 2 from The Rocket

#221 January 17, 1996
Gas Huffer
Seattle now has Gas Huffer (the subject of a Dawn Anderson cover story) all to itself. "None of us feel like touring anymore," says bassist Don Blackstone. "Driving around the world in a van is pretty much scientifically proven not to work." The guys spent the last 10 years figuring this out, but then, most bands never figure it out at all. Gas Huffer will continue rocking the Northwest and will soon record their next CD for an as-yet-undetermined label. The band has fulfilled its three-album contract with Epitaph, and "nobody in either camp seemed too excited about extending it." The guys all have day jobs, of course, some have other musical projects going, and they're all settled into long-term relationships--except for drummer Joe Newton, "who's now a swinging single again--but you might not want to print that or the girls will all flock to him and won't leave him alone," says Blackstone. Mutton-chopped vocalist Matt Wright has recently wed his longtime girlfriend. Guitarist Tom Price works for Fantagraphics Books and also plays in the band Bottle of Smoke. Blackstone's a carpenter.

In attempting to describe Gas Huffer's sound, journalists often resort to a slew of hyphenated terms like "punk-pop-rockabilly-blues" or "garage-surf-country-punk." But the band's last album, Just Beautiful Music, simply defies description. Just Beautiful Music is the band's "progressive" album, with strange, arty guitar and even weirder-than-usual lyrics. Blackstone says the next CD will continue in that direction. "The next album will be even stranger," he says. "Now that we're not going out shoving it down people's throats we can pretty much do what we want."
--Dawn Anderson

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