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Super Best of Tacoma 2011 Readers' Picks Best Band: Fucking Eagles

A many-limbed punk rock behemoth

FUCKING EAGLES: The band challenges Tacoma to Best Taco competition. Photo credit: Patrick Snapp

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My ears were ringing for over 24 hours after the last time I saw the Fucking Eagles perform. I think I could feel the damage being done to my ears as it was happening, but I didn't care. I stood planted by the speakers as one blistering dose of rock ‘n' roll bled into the next, and I had the goofiest grin plastered on my face the whole time. That my eardrums took such a pummeling from the reduced, four-piece version of the band and not from the full, eight-piece version is some kind of testament to the power of the Fucking Eagles.

The evolution, over the past few years, of the basic punk-meets-old-school-rock of the Fucking Eagles into a many-limbed punk rock behemoth with members totaling at around eight, give or take, seems to have happened gradually and relatively organically. As I meet with the band at their practice space - all of the members and I crowded into a small room - the drummer, Stu Linkert, jokes that more members were added to fill out the stage and make the group seem more impressive. What with all the guitars, backup singers, tambourines and harmonica that now fill out the band, the Fucking Eagles have started to resemble a bastardized, incredibly noisy interpretation of Spector's Wall of Sound.

Aside from the talent and energy the Fucking Eagles boast, one of the more appealing aspects of the band is their name - the first band name, in fact, I can remember being intrigued by after seeing it on a flyer.  The name, as it turns out, started as a place-holder for when members of the band failed to show up for gigs.

"The name was this joke band," says lead singer Owen Atkins. "When the other guys didn't show up, the Fucking Eagles would play. Eventually the Fucking Eagles really did play a show, and then we just decided to stay the Fucking Eagles until we came up with a real name."

Unlike what one might suspect, the name is not derived from the Dude's notorious hatred of the band in The Big Lebowski, but rather from a dream Fucking Eagles keyboardist Wade Neal had.

"I will give full props to The Big Lebowski for co-inventing the name," says Neal. "It's not an idea that can be attributed to just one person, obviously. It's one of those celestial things that everybody thinks."

When I tell the band they were voted Best Band in the Volcano's Super Best of Tacoma 2011, they admit to not being aware they were even in the running. But they take the news in stride.

"Man, (Argonaut frontman Matt) Sader is going to be pissed," says drummer Stu Linkert.

"Can we trade Best Band for Sexiest Band?" says Atkins.

Drunk on the news of their victory, the Fucking Eagles have asked me to issue, on their behalf, a challenge to any and all Tacoma bands who wish to challenge them in any non-musical capacity - a best taco competition was suggested as an example. Only the people can dethrone them from their Best Band status, but maybe your band can take them in a slam dunk competition.

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