Issue date: 5/15/08 Section: The Weekly

French Horn Rebellion will play at Battle of the Bands tonight. Their self-titled debut album is available on MySpace and iTunes.



How would you describe your band's music?

Electro-disco-dance-rock-pop. Electro because it is like Justice digitalism, disco because we sometimes use older sounds, dance because it is dance-y, rock and pop because we do more than just beats.



Do you use any pre-recorded sounds in your shows?

Yeah we do, and that's what I like to think of as part of the mystery of the live show. It's kind of like a battle between the computer and the humans, and the audience doesn't always know which is going on at a certain time. Sometimes, we don't even know what's going on; it's really a battle between machines and people.



Do you think that computers or humans will ultimately win?

I don't know. That's the big mystery. At our shows we just try to mix the computer-generated sounds and the live music we are making, and the fun is in the mystery of that interaction.



I know you sing and play keyboard and synthesizer, but do you play French horn in the band?

Yeah, I do sometimes. I actually started the band because I was frustrated with the opportunities for French horn players out there, so I wrote some pop songs about that frustration and wanted some new outlets for my musical training. You know, as a horn player, everyone practices the same thing over and over again and gets really good, but most people will never be able to play in a symphony orchestra or anything like that.



So there's no hope for people in music school?

Well I mean, that's why I created the band. The music is so happy and peppy-sounding. But in actuality it's about a French horn player who couldn't do what he really wanted to do. But I do really like playing in the band, so it's kind of a tragic paradox.



Any new albums coming up?

Yeah, it's called From Antarctica to Planet EB1-5000. That's the working title right now. We might call it Part 1. We tried to create this fantastical journey through the music and lyrics throughout the album. We wanted to be post-reality TV, post-realist, by exploring this fantasy world we created through our music.

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