“Oh, I like this song!” said Bake Sale singer/guitarist Kate Miller after the conclusion of their set at the Velvet Lounge. It was a song off the latest Smith Westerns album; after having heard Bake Sale, Miller’s affinity for the Chicago buzz band makes total sense. Much like the Smith Westerns, the local trio of Kate Miller, her sister Jill and bassist Julian Vu like to pair obviously catchy riffs that could have been culled from Weezer, The Beach Boys or any number of ’90s Brit-pop acts with a touch of reverb. Miller’s lyrics are confessional and familiar but not overly simple. While it’s easy to relate to a song like “Count the Hours” which references nuances and niches that we’ve all seen, these don’t seem like lyrics that we could have all written. The upbeat tune belies the lyrical complexity. But just in case it’s unclear what ambience they’re trying to project: they use a bubble machine onstage.

We talked to Bake Sale about the band’s genesis, their favorite shows thus far and their upcoming name change. (If you like what you hear, don’t look for the name Bake Sale too much longer.)

Find them online: http://www.reverbnation.com/bakesaledc and http://www.facebook.com/bakesaleband
See them next: This Sunday at Comet Ping Pong with Pet Parade and Heavy Cream. $10, 9 p.m.

Had you been in bands before this one?

Kate: I was in some terrible bands in high school. Then, when I was in college, I just did acoustic stuff by myself. Then, Jill learned how to play the drums so it just kind of happened, really.


Yeah, I was wondering what had inspired you to start playing together.

Kate: She actually played guitar, originally and then she wanted to learn how to play drums.

Jill: I finally got a drum set and Kate had sent me a bunch of her acoustic recordings and I just recorded the drums over it and sent it back to her and she was like, “Do you want to play this weekend?”

Kate: That’s right, because I was going to play a house show in Richmond by myself and I had sent her recordings and she sent them back with drums, so I was like, “Why don’t we just do this?” I was living in Richmond at the time, so I started coming up on weekends and we would practice and we played that house show.

Jill: And we went into Inner Ear Studio in Arlington and we recorded four songs with just the two of us.

Kate: One of Jill’s friends had been playing bass with us prior to Julian completing the package.

You joined after the recording session?

Julian: Yeah. I’ve been on for like a year and a half now.

Kate: Yeah, August of last year. But we had recorded something just so we could find a bass player and book shows, just to have something for people to listen to that was of decent quality. Better than GarageBand.

Jill: Or Audacity.

Kate: I didn’t even have a proper USB microphone.

So you contacted Inner Ear?

Kate: I think honestly, it was a name I was familiar with growing up in this area and being into DC bands. I don’t think anybody who grew up in this area or in the suburbs doesn’t know who Fugazi is.

Julian: I’m sorry who is that? (laughter)

Kate: So, I guess it was just a name that we knew and Jill called Don so last minute and say, is there a chance of coming in…

Jill: …anytime this month. And he said, “Come this weekend.”

Kate: Come tomorrow!

Jill: So, I called out of work and Kate came home.

So, when did you move back here?

Kate: Pretty much actually, exactly a year ago. Right before Thanksgiving of last year.

Was Bake Sale a big part of the reason?

Kate: There were other reasons, but I was driving up here every weekend for practice, so being close to Jill and Julian definitely was a benefit, but there were other personal reasons, too.

Had you known Julian prior to him joining the band?

Kate: No.

Julian: Craigslist success story number one!


Kate: Craigslist magic!

Julian: I would dick around at work and look on Craigslist all the time for a variety of things, like people to jam with. They had a listing up looking for a female bassist for a girl surf-rock band and I wasn’t even interested in the position. I just wanted to hear what they sounded like. I was like, “I’m not asking to join your band. I just want to hear your music.” She was like, “Well, you should just come and jam anyway and see what happens.” I did and it just happened to work out.

Kate: Julian was so personable, even via email and I was like, “This guy seems nice and like we’d all get along.”

Julian: And you guys have used Craigslist for musicians before and it hasn’t worked out.

Kate: No. It hasn’t worked out.

Uh oh, what happened?

Kate: I guess nothing significantly terrible, but we just didn’t find the right person or didn’t jive well with them. No good stories. It just didn’t work out. Whereas when Julian came over for the first time, we were like, “Cool. Why don’t you come over next week.” It was easy.

Julian: At the time I was new in town and didn’t really know anybody to play my music with.

Oh, when did you move here?

Julian: I worked here March of 2010 and in about August I joined. I got the itch. I had to play. I’d been living in New Orleans before then.

Going from acoustic to this reverb-soaked surf rock sound is definitely a shift. Where did this decision making come from?

Kate: A lot of the songs we were playing were acoustic and then just changed and rewritten so that they’d be more applicable to being electric and having drums. Even playing acoustic guitar, I definitely wasn’t writing Elliott Smith style songs or anything. They easily translated to being rewritten. Some of them changed entirely and some of those we don’t play anymore. But, we just started with what I already had written and reworked it a little bit. And all three of us work really well together. It’s just been really simple. I’ll be like, “Hey Jill, I came up with this riff,” and we’ll be in our pajamas. Pajama jam! Because we live together. So, I’ll come up with whatever I have and she’ll come up with a drumbeat right away. Julian usually comes over on weekends.

Julian: I hate songwriting but I don’t mind adding more stuff to it. I’ll add more to lift it up but I won’t take it in a different direction.

Kate: But you’ll definitely say if something’s crappy.

Julian: I mean, there are limits but for the most part it’s worked out.

Kate: I’ll come up with something. She’ll add her drum part and then he comes over and he’s a bass master so then it’s just done. It’s easy.

I was listening to some of the stuff that you have on your Reverbnation page…

Julian: Don’t say Best Coast! Don’t say Best Coast!

Do you get that a lot?

Kate: We have. I think the lineup, too, with the two chicks and the Asian guy. You need to grow your hair out.

That’s not actually what I was going to say. I was just wondering if the song title “Kurt V” was referencing Kurt Vile.

Julian: I thought that, too!

Kate: Really?

Julian: Yeah, I did. You know, it was actually called Kurt Vonnegut and then when we went in to record it, Aristotle, who did the recording the Pro Tools session just put it as Kurt V and I was like, “Okay, I kind of like that. It’s short.” But I do like Kurt Vile.

Wow. Way for me to go with the less obvious Kurt V instead of the very obvious one.

Kate: I want to see Kurt Vile in a Pantene commercial. I saw a video of him playing at some festival and his hair was blowing back in the breeze and my boyfriend and I were watching it and I thought, “Oh my god, Pantene commercial.”

Were you in a specific mindset when you wrote these songs? It just interests me to hear that a song title was originally Kurt Vonnegut.

Kate: Well, the song originally had that title because there’s a line in the song referencing a line from…

Jill: Slaughterhouse Five.

Kate: So, that’s kind of how that happened, but I honestly think that if you listen to the lyrics that they’re not always super happy. I kind of appreciate the idea of having music that’s upbeat and happy and catchy and you want to listen to it and then the lyrics are…not that our lyrics are dark but…

Not necessarily as upbeat as the music?

Kate: Yeah. I think a really good example of that is Quasi. Their songs sound catchy and happy and whatever and Sam Coomes’ lyrics are sometimes really kind of depressing. But then, the way it’s delivered it doesn’t come across that way which I kind of like. I guess ultimately, like anybody, we strive to make music that people want to listen to. I think we would rather have the band sound more energetic and fun.

What do you think has been the most fun show you played so far?

Julian: Comet?

Kate: That was fun. “Orange Juice in Bishop’s Garden” is a local web series. This woman Otessa is the director and the writer. Actually before Julian joined the band last summer, they shot a scene — it takes place in the ’90s and focuses on a group of teenagers — so they filmed it at Comet.

Jill: And they needed a band for a concert scene.

Kate: The kids in the series were going to a show. Then, a couple months later they had the wrap party, but we screened something and then we played their wrap party at Comet and that was really fun because all of the kids we met — they use age appropriate actors and actresses — all the kids that we met through the show were there and everyone was excited and having a lot of fun.

Jill: When they filmed they were told to jump around and pretend like they were having a great time and then when we played the wrap party, it was for real.

Kate: We were joking when they were filming the scene and saying, “Look like you’re having the best time ever!” We were like, “Man, shows aren’t ever that! People don’t dance and they have their arms crossed trying to look cool,” and these kids went nuts. Then we played the wrap party and they were still going nuts. So, that was fun.

Jill: The BYT show was also pretty fun. We met so many different kinds of people and it was also an art gallery.

Kate: They also had a ball pit for adults. With foam.

Jill: We got our picture taken in the ball pit.

Kate: There was foam and giant bean bags. Way more fun as an adult and way more sanitary as an adult. It was cool and the art was just everywhere. It was sprawling. What they did with that space in such a short amount of time was pretty remarkable. It’s kind of sad that it’s gone but that’s part of the magic, I guess, that it’s so temporary.

Julian: It was a month. Even a month seems too long.

How did you come up with the name Bake Sale?

Kate: Originally the band was called Las Hermanas, like, The Sisters in Spanish. It was totally just a joke.

Julian: I was fine with keeping it, by the way.

Kate: Julian was cool with keeping it, but we were called Las Hermanas and it was a joke name. I would be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas and I’d be like, “Jill! Las Hermanas jam session! Ten minutes — be there!” So, then when the band kind of became real, we’re like, “We’ve got to think of a name!” And everything is taken and we felt so much pressure to come up with something so we said, “Let’s just keep it. Las Hermanas.” Kind of at the transition time when Matty left the band and Julian joined the band, we had discussed lineup change and changing the name. Plus, we weren’t really crazy about it in the first place cause it was just kind of a jokey thing. So, long story short, we were talking about how we didn’t have any money for recording so I said, “Las Hermanas needs to have a bake sale or a bikini carwash.” Then, I thought, “Ooh! Bake Sale!” and I wrote it down.

Julian: Or, Bikini Carwash!

Kate: Julian wanted to go with Bikini Carwash.

Julian: But it sounded too much like Bikini Kill.

Kate: So, we went with Bake Sale, but…there’s going to be another name change.

Is there another Bake Sale?

Julian: There are two other Bake Sales.

Kate: One is a death metal band from Canada.

Julian: The other is an all girl band from Memphis.

Kate: Who has a surf-y sound. That we get confused with a lot on the internet. I’ll get Reverbnation things that say, “You were added to a show at SXSW” and I’ll be like…oh, no we weren’t. And I felt kind of bad. But, I think we’ve come to a consensus. Is it time to spill the beans? We’re going to go with Beach Week. Because we have a song called “Beach Week” and we all love that song and it’s really fun to play. I think it fits. And it’s not taken! Which is big. So, I guess this is the first outing of it, but it’ll be Official official at the Comet show. We’re making drum heads with the new logo and everything this week. So, it’s going to be Beach Week and the EP is going to be Beach Week.

So, I noticed that there’s a somewhat hilarious component to your set in that you have both a bubble machine and fog machine onstage? What prompted that?

Kate: Last year we played with Tennis System and they had these amazing lights and fog and just a really cool stage set-up. After that show we were talking about it, and how Bake Sale is so not a “fog and lasers” kind of band, but that we would like to add something to the stage but didn’t know what. Fast forward a few months and Jill and I are at Party City and we see the bubble machine and we’re like “oh my god, that’s it!” so we bought it on a whim. The bubble machine does have some downsides, though. If the stage is not carpeted it’s a no-go because it becomes slippery as hell! Also, it depends where the monitors and other equipment are placed. We don’t want to ruin anything by having it get wet and soapy. The fog machine we typically only turn on during the first and last song of the set, just for cheesy fun. We try not to take ourselves too seriously.

Long story short, we rarely get to use both machines at the same time when we play due to various limitations, but Velvet Lounge allows fog machines and the stage is carpeted so we were able to use both last night!