Big Business - Biography
Big Business is a bombastic three-piece sludge metal band that began in Seattle, Washington in 2003. Originally made up of well-traveled stalwarts on the metal scene, the duo of hirsute vocalist Jared Warren (formerly of Karp) and thunderstick drummer Coady Willis (of garage punk band The Murder City Devils) created filthy stoner metal heaviness that was just as outsized as more fully-staffed outfits. Though Big Business carved out a niche as a pummeling two-piece ensemble with maximum Sabbath-informed voltage—using virtually no guitar or synths in so-doing—in 2009 they officially added a third member in Toshi Kasai on guitar. After releasing a self-titled demo on a homegrown basement label that they called Wantage USA in Seattle, Big Business has since signed with metal umbrella Hydra Head Records and released three full-length albums, have toured and become members of Seattle sludge band The Melvins, and have relocated from the Pacific Northwest to Los Angeles in 2006.
Joking that they met at a prison rodeo, Warren and Willis’s music has always had levity and sarcasm at the bottom, and at times their sound ventures into noise rock that scrambles an underlining pop sensibility. Big Business began organically when Willis and Warren started jamming together in 2003, after Warren’s bandmate in The Whip, Scott Jernigan, died tragically in a boating accident. Big Business released its demo in 2004, and signed to Los Angeles-based Hydra Head Records to release its hell-raising debut album in 2005, the Phil Ek-produced Head For the Shallow. Described as Slayer having sex with Credence Clearwater Revival on acid, the near guitar-less album achieved the kind of low-end steam-rolling grit that would become the band’s stamp on the strength of Warren’s lung-scorched vocals.
Having developed a cultish following for their wild two-man live gigs, Big Business toured throughout the United States in support of Head For the Shallow before relocating to Los Angeles in 2006. After being invited to join up with the more established Melvins, Warren and Willis delivered the sinister sludge as the rhythm section (along with the regular drummer, Dale Crover) for The Melvins’ monolithic album, A Senile Animal (2006 Ipecac). Warren and Willis made it clear up front that joining The Melvins wouldn’t mean the end of Big Business and, after touring with the band in support of A Senile Animal (the so-called “Double-Drumming Rock for Peace Tour”) as well as performing opening those sets as Big Business, Willis and Warren got right back in the studio to record their sophomore release.
This time using guitarist David Scott Stone in the recording studio (who had worked with Jello Biafra and Mike Patton, among others), Big Business turned out Here Come the Waterworks (2007 Hydra Head). They held a free pre-record release show in Eagle Rock, California, at the All Star Lanes bowling alley. The album distinguished Big Business from the more popular Melvins and landed them a spot opening for the summer leg of a Tool tour. A little artier than the previous album, the band also brought on a guitarist for those gigs, Toshi Kasai, who would later become a full-time member of the group.
In 2008, the Big Business core of Warren and Willis were back in the studio as members of The Melvins to record Nude With Boots (2008 Ipecac). Not long thereafter, they were back to their own sessions, recording Mind the Drift (2009 Hydra Head) later that same year, the band’s third LP. Again produced by Phil Ek, the album incorporated a wider array of instrumentation, such as synthesizers and skuzzy guitars that add to the already slow-roiling chaos of the patented sound. 2009 saw them release Biz Bot Remixes. In 2010 the band added 400 Blows guitarist Scott Crom. 2011 saw the release of Quadruple Singles, followed in 2012 by a 7" sinlge titled Wild Kingdom.
