Last week, Boulder-based electronic group Robotic Pirate Monkey treated Gainesville fans to a hell of a time when they played at The Jam on Thursday for their Booty Snatch tour named after their recently released EP.
The group has been touring since the beginning of March and will finish their tour in May before the beginning of the festival season.
I spent the majority of the night with Andrew Hathaway and Matt Berryhill, two of the three members of the group (The third member, also Matt Flesher, was not able to make it due to graduate studies).
The three members met and formed while studying at University of Colorado, but said that their ties with each other actually formed before college due to their collective interest in skiing (Flesher used to be on the U.S. skiing team for aerial skiing). Hathaway said that he had known of Berryhill through skiing groups since school, although the two lived on opposite sides of the country. After being introduced to electronic music in college, the three ended up meeting each other at parties and eventually became what is now Robotic Pirate Monkey.
When asked how to describe their music, Berryhill wasn’t actually sure how to respond. He said, depending on whose asking, he’ll give a different answer.
“For some people I say it’s dubstep, for some I say electro hip-hop glitch stuff,” Berryhill said.
“Our style is a lot like skiing. We don’t necessarily have an idea of what we want to do with a song before we make it, kind of how you don’t know how you’re going to take on a mountain when you charge it. You just jump in and go.”
Hathway explained that skiing has been the group’s primary inspiration for making music, just as music used to influence his skiing.
“I’ve been listening to music forever and it’s been a huge inspiration in my life, but that’s through skiing,” Hathway said, “And that’s me skiing with music and music influencing my movement and my decisions.”
Other than skiing, the technology available for making music is inspiring Robotic Pirate Monkey. Both Hathaway and Berryhill noted a love of experimenting with music technology and seeing where it can bring them.
Via: roboticpiratemonkey.com
The group doesn’t take themselves too seriously though. During an interview with Berryhill, Hathaway burst into the room with a fruit-filled mason jar in his hand and exclaimed, “Dude, I am addicted to sangria.” They said they like to bring a light-hearted attitude to their music and performances.
“Especially in our sets, we try to keep it playful and fun and bring hooks that you wouldn’t normally hear in an EDM set,” Berryhill said.
Berryhill wasn’t lying about the hooks the group throws in during their sets. Playing with Ableton Live and controllers as opposed to mixing decks that most electronic acts use, the group has power and control over each sound that gets played. During their set at The Jam, the two threw in samples by everybody from Mary J. Blige, Britney Spears and Bob Marley. They even had the crowd grooving to the 90s classic by Presidents of the United States of America “Peaches.”
“That was all Matt, man,” Hathway said talking about the inclusion of “Peaches” into the set, “I just stepped back for a second and was like, ‘Whatever he’s doing, man, I dig it.’”
You can expect the group to get bigger from this point on, as they just signed with Circle Talent Agency. Circle Talent boasts some of the biggest names in electronic music, such as Flux Pavilion, Datsik and Doctor P. With that kind of support, and the energy they bring to their music, Robotic Pirate Monkey could be slamming in your headphones before you know it.
Image Courtesy of: Robotic Pirate Monkey
