On the night of the hottest, wettest, summer flash flood I have ever seen, I venture out to meet up with the members of Chicago power punk band Whisky Dick at the Elbo Room. By the time I arrive, my pants are soaked—honestly, my jeans are wet up to my knees, socks soaked straight through, I’m hot and I think we all know there’s not much worse than hot, wet, jeans. Luckily, I find Alex right away, dry off, and grab a cold beer. I sit down with Dave & Alex in a dark booth in the corner. They introduce themselves. Dave says something about 7 inches—mimicking my tiny, southern-california, valley-twang. I tell him to quit making fun of me.

Dave: I’m not making fun of you. Everyone thinks that about me! I’m just a smartass.

Alex: Dave is just a smartass, no one really thinks he’s an asshole.

We laugh a little bit and Dave goes on about something—I’m not really listening, still bitter that the bathroom doesn’t have a hand drier but, anyway, I finally wrangle them into being a bit serious, and Alex tells me that when he joined the band 2 years ago it was a power trio (bass, guitar, drums), but the guitarist left shortly after—it was mutual, of course (It always is). They haven’t found anyone to replace him—not yet, anyway.

The band first formed seven years ago, according to Dave, has “been through a lot of different musicians.” Dave has only ever been in this band. He taught himself to play the bass and wrote a bunch of songs on his own before he found a guitar player and formed the band.

Whisky Dick got its name when Dave’s roommate Tony came home the morning after a long night of drinking. He told Dave he had met a girl night before. Dave asked how it went, and Tony said, “Not so good. I had whisky dick.” Dave loved it, “It just hit me. It’s familiar and offensive. It’s already in your head, I don’t have to teach you anything new. But the way we spell Whisky is an old, Irish spelling. There are like a million other things called Whisky Dick, so I started playing with the spelling, and ended up dropping the ‘E.’”

Alex’s first instrument was the trumpet back in the seventh grade. He learned to play the drums on a kit that belonged to a cult. Alex told me, “I was actually related to the guy who started the cult in my hometown of Wapakoneta, OH—as well as being related to Neil Armstrong. The cult was called ‘The Way.’ I was related to the guy who started that, and Neil Armstrong is my sixth cousin. Wapakoneta is very drab. It’s a suicide capitol, a lot of drugs there, not a lot of people, a lot of talented musicians.”

Dave started out on the horn, and when he was 12 or 13 he picked up the guitar. Dave told me,”There was this band called Sleepyhead that used to rehearse across the street from my high school when I was a freshman. The guitarist was Pat Barnard, who ended up playing with Wesley Willis. So Pat Barnard was the biggest asshole I had ever met in my life, and he played the guitar, so it kind of made me hate the guitar. But the bass player in the band was really cool, and he let me play his bass a little, and because of that I never wanted to play the guitar again and just played the bass.”

Alex found Dave when his mother sent him an ad in the Chicago Reader for a “Crazy, mad-man, double bassist.” Dave says Alex came in the door and said, ‘Hey, I’m a crazy motherfucker.” Dave knew right away that Alex was the next member of Whisky Dick.

Their first show together was at a punk show in a coffee shop in the suburbs. Dave says, “And the cops showed up. There are two things that happen at Whisky Dick shows, the cops show up, and fights start.”

MEMBERS
Alex fisher – drums, backup vocals
David Daniel Waters aka Dick Whisky – bass, lead vocals

WEBSITE
www.myspace.com/whiskydick