TEAM LAST CALL

There are pros and cons to having a computer as a bandmate. He rarely comes up with song ideas, and almost never pitches in for pizza. On the other hand, he doesn’t drink the band beer, and if he ever gives you any attitude, you can unplug him.
No one has learned these lessons as well as Jason Reynolds and Rob Lindgren of Revolution, I Love You, an indie rock-dance-pop band from Middletown, Delaware, whose third member always seems to view the world in ones and zeros.
“It sucks, because the laptop doesn’t go to the diner with you after the show. It’s not much fun,” says Reynolds.
“On the other hand, breakfast is a lot cheaper,” Lindgren offers.
The laptop is in some ways Revolution, I Love You’s defining element, providing the fat-bottomed beats and buzzing bass that turns Reynolds and Lindgren’s eerie Brit-pop into something fiercely fun. Stripped of the ornamentation, the songs might come across as gloomy, if not downright creepy, with Lindgren moaning and crooning in half-time over droning keys and dark guitar lines soggy with reverb. But those chirpy, choppy beats wring out the melodrama and replace it with a winking dare to dance. In the words of Black Eyed Peas, Revolution, I Love You are not afraid to get retarded when necessary.
The band captured this dichotomy on its debut EP, noise. pop. deathray., released last year to rave reviews that drew comparisons to modern-day buzz bands like Menomena, Ratatat and other groups that, frankly, RILY had never heard of prior to recording the album. “I listen to a lot of Bright Eyes and Rob listens to a lot of The Smiths,” Reynolds shrugs, adding Squarepusher and Aphex Twin as electronica influences.
“When we first started writing the album, we wanted to make something expansive and strange, but we kept coming up with these quirky little pop songs,” Lindgren says. “So the goal became to make these pop songs work with our propensity for abrasive noise and weird arrangements.”
Lindgren and Reynolds have been playing in bands together since high school, but it wasn’t until they were in college that one of their projects finally started to take off. So they both quit school to pursue it on a full-time basis – just in time to watch all of their bandmates quit. It was around that time that Reynolds wrote a song called “Can I Get the Door for You?” that would lay the foundation for Revolution, I Love You’s ass-shaking future.
Reynolds recalls, “At some point, I said the now infamous words: ‘Why don’t you try putting a beat under that?’”
“I entirely misunderstood him,” Lindgren says. “Apparently, he wasn’t thinking of ’90s house when he said ‘beat,’ but that’s what he got.”
The success of that song was the impetus for RILY’s sound to-date; the dance odyssey had begun.
So they can talk the talk on the dancefloor, but can they walk the walk?
“I do the Lawnmower,” Reynolds deadpans.
“And I’m working on the Carlton,” Lindgren says. “But seriously, I wouldn’t brag, but I don’t think either of us would get kicked out of the club, either.”