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If you were to invite the Mae Shi and Hot Garbage over to a fancy dinner party and feed them multi-colored bubble wrap and aged Wisconsin cheese, and then make them watch punk documentaries through a kaleidoscope, you might get Terrior Bute. I assure you that the electronic, peppy punk sounds of this band will make you want to quit school and pursue a career in time travel. Terrior Bute's synth man/vocalist, 21-year-old Loyola junior and history major Jeff Graupner, took some time to talk to the Phoenix about his band's first widely released LP, Realm Dwellers. The album, from the Milwaukee-based record label Vicious Pop, is out now in stores and on iTunes.
The Phoenix: So tell me about your band. What's your sound like?
Jeff Graupner: Well, our band is Terrior Bute, and we're from Milwaukee, Wis. We're essentially a punk band, but we use synthesizers.
P: Is Realm Dwellers your first album?
JG: Not technically. We have a short LP from high school.
P: Do you have any big influences that you attribute your sound to?
JG: Yeah, it's always changing. I mean, when we first started the band, we listened to a lot of Devo and that kind of stuff, and now we listen to a lot of things like Usaisamonster.
P: Where are your favorite places to play?
JG: There's a lot of good basements and warehouses, which are always more fun than bars. There are a lot of good places in Milwaukee, and we've been to the East Coast twice.
P: Do you have any weird rituals before you play a show?
JG: It's all weird rituals.
P: Anything specific?
JG: No, I mean we get like, Wendy's, and maybe some energy drinks.
P: Do you have any band goals, like world domination or maybe dance reformation?
JG: Not really, I mean, we definitely don't want to dominate the world.
P: No, that's not nice.
JG: As long as we can use my mom's van and tour around, we're good.
P: So, I hear your band is split up, some of you live in Wisconsin and some of you live here. What's that like? How do you function as a band?
JG: It's pretty tough, because when we all lived together we all could play shows whenever and practice all the time, but now it always has to be a planned-out thing and we don't practice that much. Ryan, who plays the Moog, is in Copenhagen, Denmark right now.
P: Oh dear.
JG: Yeah it's for his 'semester abroad,' but we're playing some South by Southwest shows and we're just going to have a friend of ours from a different band fill in the part. But that's the first time we'll have ever done that.
P: Would you consider yourself a Chicago band? Or are you exclusively a Milwaukee band? Or perhaps are you a hybrid? Like Chicaukee or Milwaugo?
JG: We're a Milwaukee band. We're all from there and it's what we know. And it's more of a Milwaukee vibe and sound.
P: So, I know this is random but as a Chicagoan, I'd like to clear something up with Wisconsin: I get weird looks when I tell people that Wisconsiners call their ATMs 'time machines,' but I'm pretty sure you guys do that. Is this a valid point?
JG: Yeah, it's true. A valid point.
P: WTF?
JG: Well, you see, it's 'T.Y.M.E,' so it's 'tyme' which stands for 'Take Your Money Everywhere.' It's the company that owns the ATMs, it's their brand and they're everywhere, so we call them 'tyme machines.'
P: So do you think Wisconsiners are more likely to be confused for wizards?
JG: More likely than the average person?
P: Or maybe intelligent space martians possibly? Wizards don't use time machines.
JG: No yeah, wizards don't use time machines. Maybe they'd be confused for someone who wanted 20s, and made some sort of mistake and is trying to change the past - desperate men and desperate women trying to go back in time.
P: So, are you going to be going on tour anytime soon?
JG: Yeah, we're actually going down to Texas in March. We're going with this band, Big Fun 4Ever, they're from Milwaukee, and we're playing four shows in Kansas City, Denton, Texas and a couple shows in Austin.
P: Any closing words for our readers?
JG: Yeah, um, keep it up. Keep up the good work everybody.
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