Artist Information

Instrumentation
Jim Birch, Steve Trumpeter, Matt Engstrom

Biography
Somewhere in Prague, a small pirate radio station is broadcasting Uncle Charles’ electronic rock hour, featuring the crafty analog arrangements of the Infrasonics. A few kilometers away, just at the edge of the transmission’s range, a receiver captures the FM frequencies, converts it to encrypted ones and zeroes and flashes it at the speed of light across copper wire all over the world. In Barcelona, a laptop silently decodes those ones and zeroes inside a briefcase handcuffed to the wrist of the Bad Guy.

Others lucky enough to intercept the transmission are treated to an earful of driving electronic rock, smooth beats and lush, layered compositions, courtesy of Chicago’s newest analog symphony orchestra, The Infrasonics. With their vintage organs, electric pianos, moog synthesizers, guitars, basses and booming beats, the Infrasonics’ blend of electronica, indie rock, trip-hop and downtempo grooves light up stereo speakers across the world.

The Infrasonics have been the Bad Guy’s partners in crime since the turn of the millennium. Veterans of a top-secret cold war weapons program which studied the use of ultra-low-frequency sound waves as weapons, Jim Birch, Matt Engstrom and Steve Trumpeter absconded with the blueprints, disappeared underground and used the technology to fuse a new aural assault. Now, their unique musical abilities and sonic adventure comes to the table without the confines of specific roles in a band. During the course of a mind-bending Infrasonics show, each member may pick up a guitar, click a mouse button, lay down a synth melody, tweak knobs, and pound out a bass line, sometimes within the same song. This gives the band a chance to exhibit a spontaneity not found in other electronic outfits.

To the average listener, Uncle Charles’ broadcast of the Infrasonics’ debut album, Bad Guy Music is an original treat to the ears. Created at InfraCon3, the Infrasonics’ secret subterranean lair, Bad Guy Music’s 15 instrumental tracks have the hip, bohemian swagger of a soundtrack to a movie about a European jewel thief. The album ranges from frantic, driving rock in songs such as “EKG,” “Bad Guy” and “Passport” to mellow, blissful head-nodders like “The Job” and “The Caper.” To the Bad Guy, it is a coded message: details of his next operation.

At the end of the hour, Uncle Charles’ pirate radio station goes dark, disappearing into the night while the Bad Guy begins his preparations. Fortunately, music aficionados in the know can still pick up their copy of Bad Guy Music and crack the code or check out one of their incredible live shows and explore the exciting underworld of the Infrasonics.

Thank you for taking the time with us today

JB = Jim Birch; ST = Steve Trumpeter

DK: How much equipment do you use to make your average song?
JB: We’re definitely fans of “off the beaten path” musical instruments. We have a wide variety of electronic and acoustic instruments in our studio. We mix together the latest digital and virtual instruments; analog synthesizers and drum machines from the 80s; guitars and effects from the 70s; and quite a few combo organs and electronic pianos from the 60s. We like to experiment with creating new sounds that fit in with the framework of our written songs, and to develop songs out of experiments and soundscapes that work out of jams.

ST: Some of those songs are pretty stripped down, others have thirty or more tracks. The original idea for Bad Guy Music was to make a record without guitars, but we threw that idea out since there were a handful of songs that were just begging for it. We wound up just trying to be a little bit eclectic, but still make sure everything fit the context of the song. Matt’s pretty damn good on the Wurli, too, and it sounds so sweet that that instrument is on almost every track.

DK: Of that equipment, how much of that makes it out to a performance with you?
JB: While we don’t bring all of it, we do bring a good portion of it. One of my favorite things to see in our live set up is a laptop computer sitting on top of a combo organ that was made in 1968, back when a home computer was a pipe dream, never mind a laptop. Some of the gear is also too fragile to gig with, so we have replaced a few things with some more modern equipment for the traveling show.

ST: Our live setup is something like seven keyboards or so, guitar, bass, drums, and occasionally a sax and a looper. It’s a pretty complicated setup since we also do our own wireless monitor mix on stage.

DK: You describe your music as an electronic symphony orchestra but also you list yourselves under a dance category. If one has not been fortunate enough to hear your music, where would you say your music falls under more correctly? Dance? Or Electronic (without the club beats, etc)?
ST: I usually refer to it as Instrumental Electronic Rock.

JB: We find that our music lies right in between the two. (Where did you see the Dance listing? I’ll have to change that –thx)

DK: Are any of you into HAM radio broadcasts and international radio shows as your bio describes?
JB: I grew up watching my father, who is blind, tinker on a ham radio. The math of it always intrigued me. Slight turns of the dial reflected slight changes in the frequency, and a small turn either way could loose the signal or gain another one. The same thing is applied to our analog synthesizers. Subtle shifts in the frequency of the filters and/or oscillators can completely change the sound around. When recording, we often find one member of the band playing the instrument, while another sculpts the sound by turning knobs on the synth, or on a filter, wah, or pedal that comes after the synth.

DK: How did each of you come together?
JB: Matt and I met in college. I first saw him on stage playing Pachabel’s Canon. As he finished, I looked around the hall and I couldn’t see a dry eye in the house. I knew I had to corrupt him and bring him over to the dark side.

I met Steve at a party here in Chicago. When I mistakenly grabbed his bottle of whiskey (I didn’t know it was his!), he pulled a shiv on me. I knew we would be friends immediately.

We all met Rez through mutual friends. Of the four of us, he is the professional musician, having played in touring rock and cover bands, and teaching kids how to play the drums weekly. At the time he was looking for something more challenging and more along his musical tastes. The Infrasonics were a perfect match.

DK: What influences do you have individually and what influences do you each share?
JB: I think we all share a love of classic rock, back when you listened to albums from beginning to end. Bands like The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds, ELO, Jimi Hendrix initially grabbed my attention when I was younger.

The late 80s/early 90s alternative bands really developed the style of music Matt and I wanted to play. Bands like Pixies, Medicine, My Bloody Valentine, Blur, Radiohead, Ride, The Charlatans kept the pop rock format, but explored their sounds, and gave a new breath to popular music. It led the way for the grunge explosion, and later the commercialization of alternative music.

Steve and I really grew into the post-rock and electronic genres by experimenting with all of the toys we’d find at yard sales and used music stores throughout Chicago. Bands like Tortoise, Air, Trans Am, Thievery Corporation really blew our minds. It seemed amazing at the time that an electronic duo like the Chemical Brothers or Crystal Method could rock harder than most rock bands!

DK: Was there a particular sound or performer you were looking at trying to emulate? Or by incorporating items like the vintage moog, are you trying even harder to NOT be like anyone else?
JB: We started out with the idea of an electronic album. We had already recorded a few songs before we came to the realization of the full theme of the album. There are certain songs on Bad Guy Music that were written back in the 90s. The rest written in the last couple of years just seem to fit.

We weren’t necessarily trying to sound like anyone in particular, nor did we intentionally try to not sound like anyone else, but there were plenty of reference points from music that we listen to in the performance of the parts, and in the recording/mixing down of parts. I’d suggest mixing the drums on this particular song to sound more like a DJ Shadow song I had stuck in my head, or Steve would suggest doubling the synth part Matt just did and pan them from side to side to sound more like Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd.

DK: What would you say to someone when trying to describe one of your live shows?
JB: Imagine if a DJ, a record collector, and a church organist got in a car wreck with a rock band.

DK: What is each of your musical backgrounds?
JB: Matt is a classically trained pianist and guitarist. He really did a fair amount of the work mixing the album, too, which, with this album, was almost like playing another instrument. Steve is a multi-instrumentalist who was typically pigeonholed as a bass player. Rez is a professional drummer. I am a hack.

DK: Where do you create most of your works? your home? Or a studio?
JB: We own a studio. Most of the recording and songwriting is done there. We also did some overdubs at Reel Sounds in Skokie to take advantage of their nice instruments (Hammond Organs, Rhodes Pianos, etc…) and expertise. We had Mike at KingSize master the album.

DK: What are some personal pieces of information that you might like to share with us today?
ST: Google “infrasonics” some day. Apart from our web site, the science of infrasonics has a pretty fascinating history. Back in WWII, both sides were studying using low sound waves as a weapon.

JB:Have you pets spayed or neutered.

DK: What venues have you played so far?
JB: We’ve played almost every venue in Chicago and the ‘burbs in our previous incarnations, but haven’t had the pleasure yet with this band. We’ve played twice on WLUW 88.7 FM.

DK: Where do you get most of your musical ideas from? Other music? Movies? Life?
ST: I think our best musical ideas come from bouncing them off each other. Some of my favorite songs on the record were born out of Jim and me playing with new instruments we got, and recording an hour-long jam. I’d go back and edit it down and find that one great minute to build a hook. Songs like Passport, The Tryst and The Job came out of that.

Other songs, like Uncle Charles or The Caper were written by one or the other of us, but rendered completely unrecognizable by the time we got finished with it in the studio.

I also love it when people compliment the drummer after hearing the record (we recorded it before we met Rez). Jim and I spent hours and hours programming drum beats on the computer and working to get them sounding as realistic as possible, yet still give them that electronic bombast. For some songs, the drum parts were the make-or-break aspect of whether or not a song would work.

For the shows, though, having a live drummer is light years better than playing over a drum track.

DK: Are there ever any messages in your songs that you would want people to know about?
ST: I think it’d probably be a little pretentious to suggest there is a message in instrumental music, but we do like it when someone appreciates the more subtle aspects of it like the background sounds or the arrangements. For my money, I think Bad Guy Music is a lot of fun to listen to with headphones, ‘cause there are a lot of layers to peel away.

I have also been thinking lately, especially as we’ve been rehearsing our live show, about the balance between emotion and technology. Before we started the Infrasonics, I never believed a cold sterile machine like a computer could merge with passionate music, to the point where we can even be spontaneous or improvisational within the context of our songs. For example, a song like Airliner, with its note-for-note guitar solo is three minutes and change on the record, and pretty much stays that way live. Last week, out of the blue, we took that atmospheric coda and ran with it for about four or five minutes, and it sounded really cool. I think our live sets will have a lot of surprises.

DK: What are your plans for 2006?
ST: We are really primed to start playing out again. We’ve got a pretty fun live show ready to go, now that we have a real human drummer. We’ve just started the show booking process, so I’m sure we’ll be out there before too long.

Past that, I know Jim and I have been writing some songs lately, and I think we’ve also built up a library of jams to wade through and see if there’s anything worth revisiting. We’ll probably start working on new songs this summer, which I’m pretty excited about now that we Rez in the band. I wouldn’t even be surprised if we start putting some vocals in. I do have a degree in fiction writing, so I’ve been kind of itching to write lyrics again.

Website
http://theinfrasonics.com

Discography
Caffeinated Recordings,
Volume 2 - Compilation
Bad Guy Music - LP