Robotic Pirate Monkey is on tour again, pleasing crowds from Orlando to Santa Monica. They’re hitting their hometown, Boulder, this Tuesday, Nov. 8, at the Fox Theater. All three are former CU students and who have jumped on the laptop-music bandwagon.
Robotic Pirate Monkey at The Intersection on Oct. 6. RPM will play a show Nov. 8 at the Fox Theater. (Courtesy Tony Norkus)
On the day of our interview, economics graduate, Matt Flesher, 23, sported a crisp outfit of grey high-top Keds, a clean white T-shirt, and a flat bill hat. His stoic, grounded demeanor makes him the so-called robot of the group.
Flesher said the trio is still perfecting their live set. They said they have a set plan for live shows, but that “it’s an evolving process.”
This Tuesday’s show will be their third headliner in Boulder. They headlined a sold-out show in Boulder during finals week in May, and played at Global Dance Festival. Now they’re touring the country and taking their dubstep-mash-up-electronic-dance-music to a national level.
When the trio began playing parties and shows under the moniker Robotic Pirate Monkey, their goal was to make it big. While they said it was difficult to know what that would look like, they’ve worked hard with friends and certain individuals to get them where they are today. Flesher said the networking aspect took as much time as the music production itself.
Matt Berryhill, 22, who studied business economics before taking a hiatus to pursue music, represents the pirate of the group. The most reserved of the three, he was dressed in a red and white striped shirt, blue jeans, and black Vans. Berryhill said that for him, making electronic music wasn’t as intuitive as he thought it might be.
“When you’re making electronic music, there are certain tricks you can learn to make it a lot easier,” Berryhill said.
The blonde, barefoot and unkempt monkey of the group, Andrew Hathaway, 22, is also a former business economics major. Hathaway said the process of getting recognized has been a difficult one.
“It’s been a year and a half of us just shooting in the dark,” Hathaway said. Flesher added, “Shooting in the dark brings a lot of results too.”
Flesher said the group dreams of working with fellow Coloradoan beatsmith Pretty Lights.
“If we worked with Pretty Lights in the studio, we could definitely learn those tricks a lot faster,” Flesher said.
Hardware fiends and technical nerds like Deadmau5 and Daedelus also send sparkles through the guys’ eyes. They said they yearn to learn the more technical, nerdy side of electronic music production.
Robotic Pirate Monkey is working on their first full-length album, set to release this fall. Flesher said their sound will be different from their live sets.
“One consistency [between our live and recorded music] is our style,” Flesher said. “We love sampling nostalgic sounds and adding new age flavor…it’s not going to be ‘Mr. Brown,’ for instance, it might not be something you immediately recognize, but it will sound familiar—like a collage of sounds to create something new.”
“It will be a… [dramatic pause] smörgåsbord,” Hathaway said.
For inspiration, the trio listens to an eclectic array of music. The morning of the interview, they were listening to Eric Clapton, Flesher said.
“It’s how we maintain our originality,” Flesher said. “We listen to a lot of non-electronic music to create something new out of something old.”
“We’re trying to win,” Hathaway said, with a laugh. “We’re the little engine that could.”
Listen to Robotic Pirate Monkey’s latest beats here.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Rebecca Bratburd at Rebecca.bratburd@colorado.edu.
