In “Weasel,” the lead track from the new EP by Des Moines rock band One Can Stan, the protagonist of the song narrowly escapes a beatdown at the hands of a high school rival.
The rival, referred to alternately as "the Weasel" and "General Grant," sets an ambush for the protagonist at a well-known hangout, baseball bat at the ready. But fate intervenes to save the day. The protagonist takes a call he “wouldn’t normally take,” gets an early ride out of there and escapes the ambush unscathed.
The song ends with a rising chant of, “That little weasel tried to set me up/That f@#%in’ little weasel tried to set me up.” Smoldering resentment and anger swell with the intensity of the music.
So it goes on the latest EP from One Can Stan, simply titled Two. The collection features four rough-and-ready rockers for fans of heavy drums, loud electric guitars and direct, vivid storytelling. The songs tell tales of messy breakups, old grudges and even fatherly love. The musical approach remains constant, no matter what the lyrical subject matter: a handful of central Iowa’s most seasoned rock musicians banging out a few tunes without overthinking anything.
In a word, this one’s a bruiser.
Bassist and principal songwriter Dave Zuck played in a series of Iowa bands for decades before he started writing his own tunes. In recent years, Zuck decided to take a stab at a six-string guitar. Once he started plucking away, songs started to emerge.
“Somewhere around seven or eight years ago, I began writing,” Zuck said. “I’d never tried writing songs before. I’m not a very good guitar player, but I just started hacking around on three-chord songs.”
Zuck played some of his compositions for guitarist and longtime friend Matt Wellendorf, whose judgment and honesty Zuck trusted implicitly. When Wellendorf told him the songs were good enough to record, the nucleus of One Can Stan formed. The band recorded a self-titled album in 2020, featuring eight rowdy songs about rural dirtbags, small-time criminals and anger management.
Both the 2020 album and the new EP were recorded at the Sonic Factory Studios' Studio C in Des Moines, with Phil Young engineering, mixing and mastering. Zuck said the band found a groove, recording four songs in a weekend. It took two weekends to get the original self-titled album done and a single weekend to finish the EP.
“Weasel” is a true story from Zuck’s high school days, recounting when he narrowly escaped getting beaten up just by sheer luck. The next track, “Firefly,” contains three verses, each detailing a different relationship from Zuck’s past that went awry. “Right in Two” is another breakup song, and it’s one of the earliest of Zuck’s compositions. He said the song grew out of his early attempts to learn an Aerosmith riff that he adapted for his own purposes. Finally, the EP winds down with “Adeline,” an acoustic-driven ballad about Zuck’s relationship with his daughters.
The EP features Zuck on vocals, bass and guitar; Mike Clabaugh on guitar; Pat Curtis on drums and backing vocals; Chad O’Neall on guitar and Matt Wellendorf on guitar and bass. Matt Jesson contributes keys on two tracks. Zuck said he comes up with the chord progressions and the lyrics, and then the band puts the songs through their paces, allowing the final arrangements to take shape organically as they practice.
When they perform live, the band features Zuck, Clabaugh, Curtis, Wellendorf and sometimes a fifth member. Clabaugh and Wellendorf trade off playing lead and rhythm guitar, though Zuck turns in his bass for a guitar on a few songs. The instrumental game of musical chairs allows Wellendorf or Clabaugh to hold down the low end temporarily.
“I feel bad taking the guitar out of their hands, but they both like playing bass,” Zuck said with a chuckle.
The chemistry of the musicians, all long-time friends, heavily influences the direction of the music, sometimes shaping the songs in ways Zuck doesn’t anticipate, he said.
“I can’t overstate how much all the members help to arrange and compose these songs and how much they add to the original structure I bring to the table and how much that contributes to the outcome of these songs,” Zuck said.
The new EP is currently available to stream online. One Can Stan will play a release show at xBk in Des Moines on Aug. 23 with Eric Kennedy and Matt Jesson in support. Tickets can be purchased on the xBk website.