Lazy Susan Works Overtime For A Roadhouse-Rock Sound

Lazy Susan, tomorrow, 2 p.m., Occidental Park, free. Tomorrow night, Colourbox, 10 p.m. $7 (Fat Tuesday, Pioneer Square joint cover) 340-4101. --------------------------------------------------------------- The only thing lazy about the band Lazy Susan appears to be the name.

It certainly isn't the band's stage performance, which, led by fire-haired singer Kim Virant, is emotional, taut, sometimes rowdy but always heartfelt and dynamic. Nor does the music ever slack. It rocks with a roadhouse assuredness and a thick, blues-edged twang. And as for commitment to the task, Lazy Susan lacks none.

"I feel like I have three jobs" says Virant, who along with band duties works at The Vogue and at Harry's on Queen Anne. After thinking about it, she says it's more like five jobs.

"I'm the hardest working woman in show business," she starts to add with a throaty laugh. "No, I'm just kidding. It does keep me busy and I like it. I'm really pleased with how the band has been allowed to come along since it's been together. I'm real happy with that. But the work never ends."

"Yeah, it can be really hard," agrees guitarist and mandolin man Brian Kinney, who co-writes most of the band's material with Virant. "You're working almost full-time during the day, then practicing, writing and trying to market yourself, too. Sometimes I don't have the energy. I mean, I thought the reason I became a guitar player was so I could be lazy!"

The band formed a little over a year and a half ago. Virant, a military brat who's lived in Washington since the early '80s, only decided to start singing a year before that.

"I was in Europe with my roommate," she recalls, "trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. At the beginning of the trip I was just thinking about it, like, `Well, maybe I could do this singing.' By the end of the vacation I had convinced myself."

She found an accompanist when she got back to Seattle, but eventually hooked up with friends Kinney, who was then playing for the Picketts, and guitarist Tim DiJulio.

"We played our first gig three days later," says Kinney. "We even did original songs." They soon recruited drummer Steve Brammer, who brought in bassist Scott Summers. The line-up has been solid ever since.

"What we discovered is we all shared an interest in the same kind of music and Woody Allen. It's important to like the same kind of humor if you're all going to be locked up in a van together."

The band released its first CD, "Twang," on its own last December, handling sales and distribution itself. It's a straight-ahead, no-nonsense collection of blues and country-imbued rock. Virant says the orders keep coming in.

"It really is pretty cool when people come up to you and say `Hey, we bought your album! We really like it!' "

According to Kinney, the project was a demo tape that got out of hand.

"We were just going to do a few songs, and we landed up cutting the whole thing in like another three days. It's almost all live. The thing is, now we've written a whole bunch of new songs. So we want to get back into the studio and do more. Show where we are now. `Twang' was fine for the time, but we've gotten so much better, more sure of ourselves. And I think the new songs show that."

Along with recording plans, the band is also working with an L.A.-based management firm. "Nothing's signed yet," says Virant, "but we're getting there. It would be nice to let someone else handle that part of it."

Meanwhile, the band is expanding its geographic and audience base. They've played Bellingham and Tacoma, have lined up work in Spokane and Pullman and recently did a well-received all-ages show at Seattle's OK Hotel.

"I was really nervous about that one," says Virant. "I really didn't know how well our stuff would go over with a younger audience. They seemed to like us, but a few nights after the show, I got this call at home from this girl, and she asks in this little voice, `Is this Kim?' and I said, `Yes,' and she said, `Hi, I'm here with my friends and we saw your show last Saturday and we just love you!' So I told her our next all ages show was Feb. 20 and she said, `That's my birthday!' So I asked how old she'd be and she said, `13!'

"It was about the most flattering thing that could have happened."