Avenpitch
Butterfly Radio

Minneapolis’ electropunk outfit Avenpitch aren’t waiting around for you to take notice of them.

The quartet have married their love of a wide range of music (industrial to new wave, top 40 pop to metal) to create their own electropunk blend, which appropriately, at times resembles Beastie Boys set to Mindless Self Indulgence.

We love that guitar meets synth and beatbox sound, and the songwriting on the group’s current disc, Butterfly Radio, is progressive enough to keep us interested after a few spins.

Here’s our favorite track:
“Jack the Idiot Dance” (mp3)

We sat down with group leader Todd Millenacker to chat about the group, why they’re like the largest living species of bird (by height) and future album plans already in the works. Read on…

What’s the group’s back story?
I had some songs and needed a band. I knew Darren from my old band the Fleshpeddlers. Paul found me from a post on MusicScene.org and I knew David from his band Fadladder. Last October, David decided that the rock’n'roll lifestyle just wasn’t for him and we got Sarah in behind the keyboards. Darren and Sarah where already friends so it was just a matter of getting her up to speed. Now everything is how it should be.

Butterfly Radio touches on new wave/punk/techno and a host of other genres. How do you classify your sound?
For all intents and purposes we call it “Electropunk”.

Who are your main influences?
One of my recent obsessions has been Kevin McMahon (Lucky Pierre/Prick). He was signed to Nothing Records in the mid-90s and toured with David Bowie and NIN. For the past couple years, I’ve been exchanging CDs with other hardcore fans from all over the world and have amassed a pretty cool collection of bootlegs dating back to ‘78! If anyone reading this is also obsessed with (or even knows about Kevin) shoot me an email.

As for other stuff, recently I’ve “discovered” Tom Petty and Neil Young. Obviously, one or two people knew about them before me, but I appreciate them differently now then I use too. Other then that it’s the my same old standards – Smashing Pumpkins, The Kinks, David Bowie, The Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order, The The, Springsteen, Gordon Lightfoot, Zakk Wylde, etc. Oddly, lots of stuff that doesn’t sound like Avenpitch.

As for the rest of the band… everything from Bauhaus to the Flaming Lips to Shellac to Guns N’ Roses.

Who would you say your group most resemble musically?
I’d probably say Prick just because Kevin McMahon has been such a huge inspiration to me musically. I really like the way he incorporates layers of sound and random noises into his songs. Past that, we’ve been compared to everybody from Justin Timberlake to Slayer to the Beastie Boys to the Killers. I’m not really sure what to make of all those comparisons, but I figure people must hear something familiar in there and use it as a reference point to get their head around what we’re doing.

Tell us me about the recording of the album.
It was fun. I always enjoy the songwriting/creative aspects of being in a band a little more than playing live. All recording was done either at the practice space or at my house. We had a computer set up at each location and I would just burn CDs of data and bring them back and forth between the two locations.

As for the songwriting process, usually I’d come up with a skeleton of a song and bring the idea to the band. Then we’d jam on it and experiment with different loops or sequences. I’d bring it home, revise it a little more and then we’d do it all over again. At some point between all the visions, revisions, edits and rewrites a decent song would emerge. No song escaped without at least 100 tracks of audio, so if you find yourself bored one day pop on the headphones and listen to the details. I really love to layer stuff into the mix.

What’s your favorite track of the 10 and why?
I still really like “Dusseldorf” just because it’s such a quirky song with a cool mix of disco, indie rock and metal. Plus, I think the lyrics are pretty good. “Tumbleweeds” or “Jack the Idiot Dance” would probably be my runner-ups.

What’s your live show like?
The good shows are really fun and crazy! People seem to either be stunned by our rock’n'roll mojo or scratching their heads in confusion/disbelief. I get so bored with seeing band after band just stand there and play their songs that I tend to overcompensate in the other direction. So I run around the club and dance like a lunatic in a futile attempt to entertain.
It took me awhile to adopt a “stage persona” but I think I’m finally figuring it out and we keep getting better and better.

If Avenpitch was a bird, what kind would it be and why? (cardinal is not an option - don’t ask why)
Definitely an Ostrich - not only do we sometimes feel like a large flightless bird, but we also live in a nomadic group and travel together with other grazing animals (such as zebras and antelopes). Like the Ostrich we lack teeth and swallow pebbles to help with digestion. We enjoy water and frequently take baths. Finally, we are classified as dangerous animals in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Who would have thought we’d have so much in common, huh?

Upcoming gigs/news?
Twin Cities Electropunk Volume 3 - the local compilation we organize - will be released in December. “Volume 3″ picks up where the last two Electropunk compilations left off and has some great tracks on there by Tim Rally Gold, Mach FoX, MSRP, Evarial, Hondo, Eddie Entropy, OBCT, Unicorn Basement, Gabber Nullification Project, Thosquanta, Uber Cool Kung Fu, The Eighth and OneNeoEon. It also has a new track of circuit-bent madness from Avenpitch on there called “Nothing”.

We were recently featured on the “Irene on TV” television show and that should be broadcast around the Metro-area a couple times in the next few months. We also recently spent a morning standing on a building in downtown Minneapolis for our first ever video shoot.

In typical Avenpitch fashion, it’s a new track called “Sweet Summertime” and it’s not even on Butterfly Radio. I guess we forgot that we’re still supposed to be promoting the new disc.

We’ll be releasing album number three whenever we sell enough copies of Butterfly Radio to justify releasing a third album. In the meantime, we’re just writing, recording and playing live… doing what bands do.