Dabbling in mystical, electronic and fuzzed out acoustic pop can be damn near mind-numbing. Hell, just saying it makes me either light headed or gassy. Talk to anyone who’s battled thru the last three albums from The Flaming Lips; it gets tedious. It’s a genre that flirts with genius but often times results in déjà vu - falling apart under its lack of direction. Please insert almost any mum or Radiohead song [here]. All it takes is that member who outshines the rest to ruin the ensemble. One Missouri group is looking to put life back into it however without it falling apart. And despite the common thread of longtime friends Kenn Jankowski and Adam McGill keeping its fabric together, The Republic Tigers prove they are only at their best as a whole. Their self titled debut EP makes sure of that. Now with their full studio release is ready for release, we sit down with Adam to talk about walking the thin line of media play, the new album, and sequence jumpsuits.

Pensatos: I’m looking for your tag line - like a one sentence sum you would want on your epitaph down the road.
Adam: He was a great man and a mediocre lover.

You got the name of the band from your hometown school’s team, right?
Actually, it was Kenn’s hometown school team. It also has some type of association with a WWII bomb squad. Hopefully, the name doesn’t offend any vets.

“[Air has] a great sense of humor and a great sense of flair. However I prefer white leather jumpsuits to sequence.”

We have a copy of Keep Color here and it’s much more involved than the EP led on; much more likened to the sounds of XTC or psych euphoria of The Shins. Influences?
I personally love a lot of different music. But, my top 5 influences right now would have to be: Serge Gainsbourg, Radiohead, Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood, Burt Bacharach, and last but not least,…. Ennio Morricone. There are however many more on the list.

Everyone’s got a top five… Chop Shop, your label, is begging to be a stepping stone for media blitzes on television shows thanks to Patsavas’ history with music placement on television shows. Are you ready for spots on One Tree Hill?
I think that we are all ready for our music to be heard anywhere we can make it heard. That is, in my opinion, the goal of most artists. Ultimately you have to be pleased with the art you’re making but it is much more satisfying when the rest of the world is pleased with the art you’re making as well.

Tell me a bit about your recording experience of Keep Color? Highs/lows?
We all love the recording process. That is where a lot of magic happens. Ideas become complete ideas; skeletons finally put on some skin and do a dance. The entire process is a high until the tragic, occasional day where you have some terrible technical difficulty or you’re just so tired that hearing one more note of the song you’ve been tracking for 4 straight 16 hour days is going to put you into a coma or worse. And then remarkably, you get a good night’s rest, and all of a sudden you’re back to the typical euphoric recording studio high.

“Ultimately you have to be pleased with the art you’re making but it is much more satisfying when the rest of the world is pleased with the art you’re making as well.”

How was it working with the mix style of Mark Needham on the album?
He is extremely musical. He really does play the mix console like it is a musical instrument. He really helped to build some dynamics on songs that I thought … could not be any more dynamic.

‘Air Guitar’ is definitely a stand out song; different from the rest of the albums offerings.
We were all on Christmas vacation last year. We took about a month off of “band stuff” around that time. Kenn and Ryan decided to work on a Christmas gift for the rest of us. They met up one day and put together a demo for it and posted it to our MySpace. We all heard it and decided to throw it into our live set occasionally. So, as a band we all worked out some of the kinks in it and tried to make it slightly more cinematic. The result is what you hear on ‘Keep Color’.

Were you always an atmospheric pop outfit or has it progressed to this sound over time? We’d feel much better knowing your roots and that you won’t go the route of Air and wear sequence jumpsuits on stage in the near future.
It has always been this way for us. This type of music is what we enjoy. Our original goal was to create cinematic pop landscapes with any technology that was available to us. I think that will continue to happen as long as we are together. But come on, give Air a break. They’ve got a great sense of humor and a great sense of flair. Also, if I would have gone on with my influences list they definitely would have been next in it. However I prefer white leather jumpsuits to sequence.

+ review: The Republic Tigers - The Republic Tigers EP
+ video: The Republic Tigers ‘Feeling The Future’