Breaking Artist: Apes & Androids

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Who: Aptly named New York quintet Apes & Androids, who merge primal classic-rock influences with futuristic song structures.

Sounds Like: A dance floor-ready cocktail of Queen's bombast (complete with Freddie Mercury's falsetto), 1980s Prince, *Ziggy Stardust*-era Bowie and Beck's Midnight Vultures. On their debut album Blood Moon, A&A pump out sing-alongs like "Hot Kathy," party starters like "We Don't Understand You" and simmering burners like "Riverside." "We tried to build the record into something that would be a journey when listening to the whole thing," says A&A's Brian Jacobs, who shares vocal and guitar duties with bandmate David Tobias.

Vital Stats:

• Jacobs and Tobias met as third graders in New Jersey and started writing music in their pre-teens. "After high school, we went to different colleges so we had a long distance band relationship. We'd work in our dorm rooms, then get together during breaks and build songs together," says Jacobs.

• The band's live performances are becoming as well-known as the songs themselves, with cheerleaders, giant silver skulls, face paint and even a Korean drum circle all making appearances for a unique live experience. But the live shows aren't the only medium that has helped spread the band's name. "MySpace has been huge. We released two songs on there when we first started, and suddenly people all over the place knew it," says Tobias.

• The band's musical division between the past and future dates back to elementary school. "I remember when I met David, he was listening to Digital Underground, stuff with a lot of samples," says Jacobs, who was already deep into Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Nirvana.

Hear It Now: Check out the band's MySpace page for a few tracks, or get their album either through their official site or iTunes. If you can't make it to their Hiro Ballroom show tomorrow night in NYC, check out the above video (shot at a Halloween performance), for a taste of the band live.

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

More Song Stories entries »

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