Shimy Up With Electric Attitude

Electric Attitude’s Blake, Kwesi, Jordan and Adam are ager to impress the Houston masses with their unabashed sound of infused blues, rock and showmanship. They have had to play for audiences unschooled in what makes Electric Attitude memorable, a challenge that the band has been more than ready to undertake. All the while transforming audiences into debauchery seekers, revelers into all things dance and making their bodies chant “Move Your Body.”

They saddled up to speak to IndieHouston on a sunny Sunday afternoon at local coffeehouse Agora to prove their point and show Houston that it’s definitely here to party.

Alma Verdejo: I know you guys were Bayou City Beach Party before but now you’re Electric Attitude. Where did you get the idea to change your name and why?

Blake: We landed on Electric Attitude because on one of our songs, “Party,” there was the electric attitude lyric. The reason [Bayou City Beach Party] stuck for so long was because we didn’t know what to name ourselves, but at the same time people who were trying to book us thought we were a ninety-year-old cover band.

Alma Verdejo: You guys have been described as psychedelic punk, bluesy groovy sound. How difficult was it to get that sound together?

Jordan: We are a rock band at heart. We build up on that. Kwesi is deeply rooted in funk and him and me playing together and writing music together. Me, coming from a very hard rock fan, and he a Motown fan, I guess you can say that we started getting into stacks.

Blake: I’ve always been a fan of singing vocally than I did of being a fan of soul. People like Stevie Wonder, a lot of female vocalists. I actually like PJ Harvey, one of my favorites. A lot of my sound was soul and he [Kwesi] brought a lot of funk and I liked bluesy dirty disco. I love dancing, and I love to dance.

Alma Verdejo: Is that your main goal, to make people dance?

Kwesi: That’s our main goal. We want to get everybody moving and not having people staying there with arms folded.

Blake: That was sort of our motto. “If we can make people dance in Houston, we can make them dance anywhere.” We though this city would be a great starting ground, it wasn’t discouraging starting here.

Alma Verdejo: So you’ve found the scene very welcoming?

Blake: So far, yeah. People seem to be like us. It seems to be that it [the music] isn’t as punk or as angry and it is becoming smoother, melodic, dance rebellion against all the stuff that’s been going on in the last ten years in Houston. There’s this real raw, punk rock and roll thing that’s been going on and a lot of people are starting to get over it. And people feel something sexy.

Alma Verdejo: Is that what people should be feeling, something sexy?

Blake: Well, we don’t write songs “Hooker Red Lipstick” for people to get angry with.

Alma Verdejo: How does the collaboration effort work out?

Blake: We pitch riffs, we pitch content. When we started writing “Black Heart” it was a dark soulful disco song, so we kind of got this image of dark “Shaft” vibe and that’s how we got the intro. Starts with that smooth strut and we break into a rock solo.

Kwesi: A lot of times we a each come in with something. Like I’ll come in with a baseline or we might just be in the room jamming and whatever riffs stand out, we’ll want to use. And that’s a guitar riff and we challenge each other.

Jordan: The song titles will, sometimes, just come out from the feelings we have from those songs. It’s not actually a line featured in the song but when a girl goes out in hooker red lipstick, she means business.

Alma Verdejo: I know that there is a song “Shot on the Dance Floor” that has intrigued me. How did it come about?

Kwesi: I’m a teacher and one of my students, his dad owns DrinkHouston [where it happened]. I called Jordan and he was talking about it and he was like “Ah damn, you go out and want to have a good time and you get shot on the dance floor.” And we just started laughing.

Blake: So yeah, we turned it into a tragic, unrequited love story.

Alma Verdejo: We’ve talked about how the songwriting process works, but how did you guys become a band?

Blake: It was a total accident how we became a band. It was originally a bassist, a drummer and I on guitar and the bassist went out of town and he recommended Kwesi to us, he was a friend of his. And me and him had immediate chemistry and then Jordan jumped on and we were playing guitar together and its like “Man, we should hang out together.”

Alma Verdejo: I noticed that there wasn’t anything up on your MySpace comparing your sound or listing your influences. Is it because there are so many of them? Or you just don’t know what they are?

Blake: We know who we are but at the same time, we don’t want to turn people off by telling them who we think we are. We’d rather people decide what they think on their own.

Kwesi: Also, anything from Curtis Mayfield to the Mars Volta.

Jordan: As far as you wanted a sound bite, if the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Mick Jagger.

Alma Verdejo: Any local bands you like? And what’s your favorite line up you would like to be included with local bands?

Jordan: We got a show with at Rudyards with Magnetic, I like them. I also like the Studemont Project.

Blake: The Gold Sounds.

Kwesi: I’m a big fan of Pekaboo Theory. I also like that our scene is a wide range of sounds. It’s indicative of what Houston is.

Check them out at Electric Atttitude.

They play Rudyard’s Pub on March 14th with Magnetic and hueman.
Doors open at 8pm, show begins at 9pm.