Big business.

FOR THE LAST 10 YEARS, Seattle's legendary bassist Jared Warren has searched for the right blend of distortion and sludge to meld with his pop sensibilities. He came close with the seminal group Karp, but after an all too brief stint they broke up, leaving Warren once again bandless, working in a bar, and with all the time in the world to tour. Fate would have it that across town, drumming virtuoso Coady Willis was in a similar position. One phone call later from Jared to Coady and Big Business was born and the duo immediately began hammering out some of the most relentless, unyielding, and profound music in heavy metal today.

You've both been in influential groups like the Murder City Devils and Karp, as well as played in WHIP, Tight Bros From Way Back When, Dead Low Tide, and Broadcast Oblivion. What elements from your previous bands are you drawing from and what are you leaving behind?

Jared Warren: All the bullshit.

What was the bullshit in your other bands?

Jared Warren: Guitarist's attitudes, drug problems, and wives.

Coady Willis: I think we've both been in certain bands where we learned what not to do.

Jared Warren: This band isn't that musically different from our previous groups, but it's not like we're taking that much from them either. Talk about the connection you had when you first started playing with one another.

Jared Warren: Love at first sight (laughing). There weren't any awkward moments; it was instant chemistry.

Coady Willis: It was magic--black magic.

How'd you decide on being a two-piece?

Jared Warren: We never decided to be strictly a bass and drums band.

Coady Willis: It's a question we get asked a lot. This band started with the idea of wanting to write songs. We have a lot of ideas and there still is room to grow, but at some point there is going to be a need for another element in there for us to fully realize our ideas. We've been a band for two years now and Head for the Shallow is our first record. That's our first batch of songs. We've just now started to write more songs and we're figuring it out as we go. I feel like all the potential in the world is ahead of us and we're not restricted to it staying a two-piece. If we need to figure out how to have a guitar player ...

Jared Warren: Or two or three guitar players ...

Coady Willis: Or a French horn section we will, but we'll always have the core of us two.

Were you apprehensive about starting another band after so many breakups?

Coady Willis: No, not at all. We've been playing in bands our entire lives.

Jared Warren: We don't have any marketable job skills. When you're 30 years old, still working in a bar, and without a band, the logical thing is to go out and find yourself a band.

Coady Willis: Not to compare what we do to people who go to medical school or something, but speaking for myself, I didn't go to college for a reason, because I wanted to play in a band, make records, and travel around. I feel like the two of us have spent the last 10 years of our lives learning how to do that.

Jared Warren: There wasn't any apprehension about it, but it's a long haul starting from scratch, no matter what your pedigree is. You still have to have to prove yourself.

Do you feel more confident in your songwriting now?

Coady Willis: Yeah. So far we haven't written a song that I hate or hate to play.

Jared Warren: That would be pointless.

Coady Willis: It's happened to me in other bands before, but we're writing stuff that is both fun to play and challenging at the same time.

Jared Warren: Our enjoyment is priority number one.

Did you go into the studio with a clear intention of what you wanted to cover musically on Head for the Shallow (HydraHead) or did you work through your ideas with the aid of producer Phil Ek?

Jared Warren: We had a pretty clear idea of what we wanted to do. We chose Phil for a reason. He makes a lot of really great pop records (Built to Spill, Modest Mouse, The Shins), but he's recorded a lot of really heavy bands as well, and he's generally not known for that. There are a lot of heavy bands that don't play up their pop sensibilities at all, and maybe because most of them don't have any, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think you can have some pop elements in heavy music and I thought Phil would do a really good job of bringing that out.

How much metal do you actually listen to?

Jared Warren: I don't listen to that much metal. There are few metal bands that I'd actually like to listen to their entire record. My beef with metal bands is their production. It usually sounds crappy with monster vocals. I think what ends up happening is you get a group of metal bands from a period in time that are recording with the same producer and all the records sound like that producer or like another producer trying to bite that guy's sound. We then end up with weird sterile pockets of heavy music throughout time. I was watching Headbanger's Ball last night, and all the music pretty much sounds the same. It's all produced the same where you can't hear the bass at all, the guitars are super down-tuned, and there are lots of pitched harmonics. We didn't want to sound like some metal record.

Was it a conscious effort to make the record sound as close as possible to your live show?

Jared Warren: We didn't want to get too ahead of ourselves in recording. If we had more time and resources there would be more guitars and keyboards, but we made an effort to keep it somewhat similar, so when we played it live, people wouldn't feel ripped off.

How important is it that you give your audience both a sonic and physical experience?

Jared Warren: We definitely want to kick your ass when you come to one of our shows. We want you to leave with your ears hurting and thinking you may have ruptured something.

What was it like being asked to open and then playing with the Melvins, a group you've looked up to since you were young? Coady, they even built a monster drum kit so you and Dale could play together on stage.

Coady Willis: If I could go back and tell my 15-16-year-old self that one day I'd be on tour with the Melvins or staying at Dale Crover's house, I would have probably killed myself.