In October 1997 at the final Bun Family Players show, John met Algae front-woman and guitarist Stephanie Wicker.
"[1] The band recorded a demo with notable producer Phil Ek and sold hundreds of copies at concerts.
At the Hurricanes' third show, Jonathan Poneman from Sub Pop approached Roderick to talk about signing the band.
"At one point, when we were getting into a heated discussion about how much he was going to give us to record, I put my feet up on his desk and my hands behind my head," Roderick later said.
"[1] The band played the SXSW festival in March 1999 with burgeoning fellow northwest-based indie pop-rockers Death Cab for Cutie.
[2] Western State Hurricanes' debut LP was launched as an Indiegogo campaign on Latent Print Records in September 2019, consisting of the following tracks: The album was released digitally and on colored vinyl in February 2020.