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Danger Radio
Label: Photo Finish Records
Website: http://www.dangerradio.net/
Audio: http://www.myspace.com/dangerradio
Consider yourself ahead of the curve if
you can’t immediately put your finger on Danger Radio’s sound – after all,
that’s sort of the point. The band’s sophomore EP and Photo Finish Records
debut, Punch Your Lights Out, brings together more classic-pop styles and
eras than a free-form radio station, while the members’ backgrounds are so
diverse, it’s amazing they ended up on the same continent, let alone the same
band. But be glad they did, because as the new tunes prove, anytime they hit
studio or stage, Danger Radio stir up the sort of chemistry you can’t
manufacture or buy. Forget genre tags; don’t obsess over individual influences:
like the wise man said, these dudes are one nation under a
groove.
Of course, like all nation-building experiments, this
one didn’t happen overnight. Despite being from Puerto Rico and Finland,
respectively, singer Andrew de Torres and drummer/programming whiz Niko
Hartikainen first landed in each other’s orbit around 1999, during middle school
in the Seattle suburbs. There, after cutting their teeth in talent shows, the
pair looped in de Torres’ friend and Idaho native Marvin Kunkle, and planted the
seeds for what would eventually morph into Danger Radio. The band’s early demos
showed a rougher, punkier edge, that’s mostly because their abilities hadn’t yet
caught up to the sound in their heads. By the time they hit the studio with
Casey Bates (Gatsbys American Dream) to cut their official debut EP, 2006’s
self-released The Difference Between Love and Envy, DR’s mix of rock,
pop, jazz and funk had gelled into something much bigger.
“If you put all our songs in order, you can totally
tell there’s been this slow, steady evolution from the pop-punk/indie thing to
this more fun, dancey pop thing – and that wasn’t by accident,” explains
Hartikainen, who today rounds out Danger Radio alongside de Torres, Kunkle,
keyboardist Spencer Philips, and the twin-guitar team of Elan Wright and Andy
Brookins. “We’ve never tried to write pop songs because we want to make money.
This is the kind of music we love to listen to, and it’s also the kind of music
we love to play.”
As Punch Your Lights Out makes clear, that’s
no understatement. Recorded at the Tank in Seattle with Tom Pfaeffle (Gatsbys
American Dream, Daphne Loves Derby), the EP nods to everything from Michael
Jackson’s Off The Wall (via Justin Timberlake’s pipes) to Stevie Wonder’s
double-album epics of the 1970s, using disco hi-hats, MIDI samples, and
classical/jazz flourishes (DR collectively have enough classical training to
launch an orchestra) as accents. The lead single, “Party Foul,” bounces and
grooves with Latin-funk undercurrents and little-girl vocals (courtesy of
Pfaeffle’s kids), and “Slow” drops in surprisingly effective smooth-jazz piano
to complement the guitarists’ skeletal, squiggling guitar licks. As dazzling as
it may be technically, however, the EP sounds like it was a total blast to
record: Even at their edgiest – see the title track and “Sparkle Baby Shine,”
where de Torres’ lyrics sting with kiss-offs – Danger Radio’s songs flow
together like a funk/pop fan’s dream party mix.
With Punch Your Lights Out available on iTunes
as of November, and a real-live CD version of the EP in stores for January,
Danger Radio are already looking forward to plotting their next move. The band
will hit the studio in early 2008 to record their debut album for Photo Finish,
but they’re bookending those sessions with wall-to-wall touring because, as any
DR fan’ll tell you, hearing these guys in the studio is only half the
experience. “The music takes on a whole other dimension when you hear it live
and you can see the band having fun and the crowd responding right back,” says
Hartikainen. “You can listen to us on speakers or headphones, but if you don’t
go see both, you’re just getting half the picture.”
No doubt, jumping onstage in front of 4,000 people (as DR recently did opening for Gym Class Heroes and Hot Hot Heat) or capturing the attention of a festival’s worth of fans (as they did in 2007 at both New Jersey’s Bamboozle and the legendary Seattle fest Bumbershoot) would be enough to make any band hone their live skills. As Wright explains, however, there’s a lot more to DR’s ethic than simple chops. “We love to play, and we love bringing together all these different ideas and sounds in our music,” he says. “At the end of the day, though, we’ve got a pretty simple mission: We’re here to have fun, and we’re here to make you feel something.”
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Punch Your Lights Out
Jan 29, 2008
