Medicine Hat: Cranking It Up To `Super Moist'

HEARING TEST -- For a sound check of Medicine Hat, call Infoline, a telephone information service at The Seattle Times free in the Greater Seattle area. From any touch-tone phone, call 464-2000 and enter category BAND (2263). ------------------------

-- Who they are

Ben McAllister, guitar. Just left a job working at the YMCA transient housing.

Sean Bates, singer. Manages a record store.

Jason Legat, drums. Student.

Jason Thomson, bass. Construction.

-- How they got together

Thomson, Bates and McAllister went to Edmonds High School together, but they didn't play music together until they were in the music program at Shoreline Community College, where they also met Legat. Medicine Hat's been together since January 1991.

-- How they describe their music

Bates: "Super moist. It's the inner-outmost upper feeling that you could ever have, experiences shared among everyone listening to it, I guess. It's fun music. We're all rage heads so it's really fun. . . . That's the most inevitable question that everyone asks and it's a really hard thing to answer without boasting about your band too much. I never tell anybody I'm in a band because they always ask me that."

Legat: "People tell us we're a cross between Fugazi, Primus, the Police and Jane's Addiction. That's what they hear the most. That's a good mix."

-- Their musical goals

Legat: "We want to make it a career and be international superstars, I guess."

McAllister: "I'd say like so we have a solid foundation, guaranteed involvement in the music business in the future."

Legat: "Guest hosts on `Star Search.' "

Bates: "I want to be on a K-Tel album after we're big."

Thomson: "Down the road, I think we want to film some wildlife documentaries, and get those put on the Discovery Channel for the extra bucks. `Here's Medicine Hat, with the wild caribou.' "

-- Tapes for a road trip

McAllister: "The new fIREHOSE and maybe Fred Frith."

Bates: "My friend's band, Small, from the Tri-Cities. And probably the new Lenny Kravitz, because it seriously rocks the poodle."

Legat: "Probably Pitchfork and Digable Planets."

Bates: "I'd bring Dr. Dre, too."

Thomson: "I'd bring Chic's greatest hits. And Ween, `The Pod.' "

-- If not for music

Legat: "It's such a release, playing, I don't see how people who don't play music have a release. If I couldn't play, I'd probably go crazy."

Thomson: "I'd be traveling."

Bates: "I'd be selling ladies shoes at Nordstrom. Every other member of my family does that. My whole family has something to do with shoes. I did it for about a year, and I freaked out, I couldn't handle it anymore."

McAllister: "I'd be in school, probably."

Bates: "But we changed all that, didn't we, Ben?"

-- Where to hear them

The band will perform a KGRG-FM (89.9) benefit at the Central Clubhouse in Milton on Sunday night, the Off Ramp on Tuesday or the Swan on April 27.