Burlington-based band Robber Robber stopped at WYSO studios while on tour promoting their debut album, Wild Guess. Nina Cates (vocals / rhythm guitar), Zack James (drums), Will Krulak (lead guitar), and Carney Hemler (bass) spoke live with host Evan Miller on Midday Music.
The band shared that much of their song-writing originates within a laptop screen. “A lot of the demos that we start out with, I'll just be chopping up breakbeats and stuff on the computer and then try to figure out how to play it,” James said.
The result: a chaotic, tension filled post-punk album that seems to emulate the tumultuous twenties they’re wading through.
They officially formed Robber Robber just after the pandemic, playing shows in Burlington, VM. Their first full-length album was built between the pulls of full-time jobs and class schedules. From start to final edit, it took them just under two years to create.
“I think I saw like one show after the pandemic was sort of letting up a little bit and I was like, okay, we gotta nose to the guns, we gotta get back out there,” Cates said.
For the album’s fifth track “How We Ball,” the band filmed an energetic video accompaniment on an outdoor basketball court.
“We had a bunch of our friends together in Burlington, just who was around, bought some pizza and just like, messed around,” Cates said. “It's funny, if you look at the video too closely, I mean, we're having a lot of fun and we do play basketball together, but like almost not a single shot is made.”
Cates shared that they take influence from a “hodgepodge” of sources, from Gucci Mane to Arthur Russell.
“We're like, ‘I like that one tiny element,” Cates said. “Then see what you can do with that, when you throw it together with a bunch of other tiny elements you really like.”
Cates told Evan Miller the music scene in Burlington is interconnected – each of the band members play in multiple projects.
Cates and James have worked together since high school, on projects like The Snaz and Darbi Bay. The pair moved to Burlington to attend the University of Vermont, where the beginnings of Robber Robber were threaded within dorm rooms and basement shows.
“When we started writing music together, like, Zach and I, we were doing it sort of just as an experiment to see if we would wind up liking it,” Cates said. ”Once we finally got this lineup and started really playing shows, it was probably like two and a half years ago or something.”
They’ve built a discography of three EPs, two under a previous band name, Guy Ferrari.
“Those were just like, extremely like vibey, low stakes, self-recorded lo-fi laptop music,” Cates said. “And then we knew it was time to make an album.”
