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Rachel and Radio's universes collided a few years ago, and they've been creating a lot of noise ever since. The two women behind the Need, each of whom uses only one name, met when their previous bands played a show together in Olympia, Wash. Rachel, the drummer and backing vocalist in Pacific Northwest indie legend Kicking Giant, and Radio, guitarist in Portland's dyke-pop outfit the Ce Be Barnes Band, hit it off instantly. Rachel moved to Portland to join the Ce Be Barnes Band, which soon evolved into the Need. The two resettled in Olympia, releasing several 7-inch records before issuing a debut CD on Donna Dresch's Chainsaw label. The duo's live shows have already earned praise from Rolling Stone and others, which helped propel the Need onto its current cross-country trek. From a tour stop in Nashville, Rachel says her favorite shows so far have been at women's colleges. "The girls' colleges that we've played have been amazing," she says. "I want our next tour to be all girls' colleges across the United States." This isn't surprising. Rachel and Radio are openly gay, and their sexual orientation plays a major role in the Need's music. Rachel's vocals, which were more plaintive and in the background in Kicking Giant, have grown ferocious. "I think it suits the music better," she says. "It's a different environment to put my voice in. I don't know if being louder has more to do with self-assurance or not, but I think it did have something to do with totally identifying as a dyke, because I was bisexual for a long time and confused. I decided it was time to sing louder." Rachel plays drums, a tough role for a lead vocalist. Luckily, Radio is an electronic wizard who built a headset microphone so Rachel can sing and play drums unencumbered. "When I need something, I just build it," Radio says matter-of-factly. "[The headset-microphone] is the perfect example of something we needed, and they don't really make one at an affordable price. Plus, if you buy it and it breaks, you're like, 'Oh my God, I broke this really expensive thing.' But if you build it yourself, then you know everything about it." The duo has other creative outlets. Rachel, a visual artist and graphic designer, creates the Need's artwork; her advertisement for one of the band's shows was a highlight of this year's NXNW poster festival. And Radio's inventiveness is more than a hobby: She owns and operates a guitar and electronics repair shop in downtown Olympia. She even legally changed her name to match her fixation on gizmos. Another of her obsessions is amplifiers. "I'll buy some crappy amp that I like one thing about," she says, "and I'll just keep building and adding stuff to it in the circuit until I get it to work the way I want it to." The Need's self-titled CD packs eight songs into only 20 minutes. Rachel and Radio point to their meticulous style of recording and the constant problem of low finances. "We take a long time in the studio and we had limited time, so we chose only to do that many songs," Rachel says. Part of the difficulty was that in the studio, the Need go beyond drums, guitar and vocals. The two also played bass, keyboards and assorted other instruments. For the tour, Rachel and Radio wanted the Thrones' sole member, noise-bassist Joe Preston, to better flesh things out. Conflicting schedules ruled that out, but Rachel and Radio hope to enlist a bassist and keyboardist for a future tour. In the meantime, the two women create a cavalcade of sound on their own. "We could never replicate our record live, and I wouldn't want to," Rachel says. "Ideally I would want people to have heard our CD first and then come to see us live, because they would come carrying ideas of what the songs are supposed to sound like. Then we would be up there blowing them apart." |
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