When you combine progressive rock with jazz, electronic, alternative and psychedelic influences you get space rock. While it may sound like something from a Mel Brooks movie, it’s a unique genre that holds its own on a music festival lineup. Papadosio is a five-piece space rock band that holds down for the obscure genre, whether it was intended or not.
“Space rock is kind of a joke,” Billy said. “There’s an actual genre called space rock, and I didn’t know that. Now I kinda feel like an asshole,” he said to the laughter of his bandmates.
Papadosio likes to keep it vague and broad with their musical classification. In their eyes, progressive rock is the easiest way to classify their music.
Papadosio is formed by Mike Healy, Sam Brouse, Billy Brouse, Anthony Thogmartin, and Rob McConnell. All five members met during an open jam in their hometown of Athens, Ohio. They showed up with instruments and basically left a band. That was 12 years ago, now Papadosio is embarking on a nationwide tour with their new album “Content Coma.”
Long before “Content Coma” was a thought in their heads, the band was cutting their musical teeth playing any paid gigs they could find. To their surprise, the first paid gigs came. They got a tip from a friend for shows in Colorado. Unready and unphased, Papadosio set out towards the Centennial State to capture a small piece of the rock star lifestyle.
“We definitely went on tour before we should of,” Anthony said with a grin.
“Content Coma” is a record that speaks on the new wave of technological advancement sweeping through society. While many of us are glued to our timelines and notifications, some of us realize the need to put down the devices to reconnect with humanity. The record plays with these ideas.
“It’s all over the place, but it’s kind of talking about society right now and how people are all stuck living inside boxes in their hand while learning to connect, talk to each other and hang out with each other again,” Mike said.
“Content Coma” brings a lot of individual influences from each member of the band. To take advantage of each person’s creative energy, the album was crafted individually and assembled later using Splice. Splice is a cloud-based music platform used to create and collaborate in the musical spaces.
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“It makes it easy to be creative in your own time and give everyone the space to get ideas out,” Sam continued, “it worked really well this time, it’s a funny hodgepodge of everyone’s style.”
As is common with art, artists are always excited about the newest project. Creating and performing a new album bring equal but different levels of joy and artistic expression. Piecing together an album individually is a new and rewarding experience for the group.
“Putting an album together is like painting,” Anthony said, “you do something completely intentionally so that everything is laid out in the way you want it presented.”
Listen To”Content Coma” From Papadosio On All Platforms
Papadosio is performing at Neumos Friday, October 19. Be sure to grab your tickets.
