88 MPH: Stepdad Take On Gabriel's Dark Sound

posted in: Features • Pop

The greaser types with slicked back hair and leather jackets? Yeah, they’re probably in a psychobilly band. The bearded black-clad guys practicing sweep picking? Pretty sure they’re metal.

So, what about the group with face paint and capes?

While band members’ live apparel is generally a fairly reliable marker of their genre, Michigan’s own Stepdad aren’t as easily pigeonholed. Having quickly amassed a loyal fan base on the strength of their giddy falsetto-laced pop, the members of Stepdad haven’t put any limits on their own creativity. In addition to releasing their debut EP Ordinaire in 2010, the band composed the theme for Axe Cop, an Internet comic created by a five-year-old, as well as the theme for the Atom.com’s “Top Rope” web series. Currently riding a wave of creative steam, they’re planning to release their debut full-length album Wildlife Pop this fall, and their Ordinaire EP just received a September re-release courtesy of Quite Scientific Records. Clearly, Stepdad are in no mood to slow down. Their boundless creative energy recalls a kindred prolific songwriter, one whose style permeates the opening track on Ordinaire.

Younger fans might only know of Peter Gabriel through his recent cover of Bon Iver’s “Flume” on the cover album, Scratch My Back, but as most other listeners know, Gabriel’s role in recent pop music is enormously influential. As the frontman of English prog rockers Genesis from 1967 to 1974, Gabriel helped transform the group into a live multimedia spectacle that combined costumes, makeup, props and storytelling. After the strain of writing the surreal concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Gabriel left the group to pursue a solo career. His early albums explored brooding electronic sounds with worldbeat influences, but gradually he began to embrace mainstream pop. Gabriel’s fourth solo album Security finally birthed his first Top 40 hit “Shock The Monkey.” Though Security was noticeably lighter in tone than previous solo releases, it still retained his characteristic dark sound, most prominently on “I Have The Touch” (above).

The opening segments of Stepdad’s “Jungles” and Gabriel’s “I Have The Touch” are almost identical. “Jungles” begins with a punchy, cymbol-less drum sound that recalls the classic ’80s “gated reverb” production style that Gabriel pioneered in his early solo albums. To fill out the track’s sound, Stepdad employ swirling dark synths just like Gabriel does in the intro and verses of “I Have The Touch.” Add in the similarly hypnotic vocal lines and distorted background guitar, and Stepdad complete their Gabriel-esque album opener perfectly. While Stepdad may not have planned their sonic likeness to Gabriel this deliberately, it is fitting that a band that uses costumes and face paint onstage takes some cues from one of the musicians who pioneered theatrical rock in the first place.