Pop-Break.com

jeanne crump speaks with the Pennsylvania rock band as they come to the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, N.J., for pop-break’s Shipwrecked At The Show Showcase on Thursday …

A newly formed group, Crobot (named after a half-bird, half-”bot,” half-alien) caught my attention at The Grape Room in Philadelphia one rainy, dreary night a few months back. Their charismatic and energy-packed stage presence kept me very well intrigued. They churned out solid rock bangers like they were rockstar vets. So, I’m excited to announce they’ll be performing at Pop-Break’s own ‘Shipwrecked at the Shore’, our first-ever music showcase on Thursday, February 2nd at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, N.J.

Read on for a quick interview with the Harrisburg, Pa., rock n’ roll troupe. And in the mean time, check them out here: http://www.reverbnation.com/crobot.

Pop-Break: Crobot is less than a year old, forming just this past summer from the disbandment of your other respective groups. What are you hoping to do differently with Crobot than you did with your previous bands?

Crobot: In this band, we just want to play music that we love and feels good. We don’t care about anything else. Previous bands we were in have been contrived or written towards a mass appeal — not Crobot. We lock ourselves in a room for hours and play our instruments together. Not with Macbooks. We are a real rock ‘n’ roll band.

PB: My initial thought when seeing you live at The Grape Room in Philly was “they sound a lot like Parlor Mob — they’ve got that classic, big rock band sound backed by a flashy and charismatic frontman.” Would you agree with this? Who would you compare your music to?

Crobot: [laughs] That’s great, and very much a compliment! We love The Parlor Mob, one of the few real rock bands out now. Our music is definitely similar … old-school bluesy rock riffs with high singing vocals. It’s hard to compare it, but we get Wolfmother, Clutch, and The Mars Volta a lot.

PB: What kind of touring are you planning on doing in 2012? Any cities/festivals in particular you’re dying to play at?

Crobot: Well, since we are so new, we are really working on building a few regional areas, seeing where our music sticks and hitting it hard and frequent to get the word out. We just want to play for the right people. These days, it is so hard to find people who enjoy real music and not DJs, which I feel has a lot to do with saturation of crap bands and entertainment. It’s about quality not quantity. Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t dead and never will be. We just have to give it some CPR or something. We want to find the people who have a love and respect for music like we do. They are out there … we just have to find them.

PB: Is your band name supposed to reflect some futuristic robot music creature? Or was it just a killer band name that woke you in the night?

Crobot: When the band first got together and started jamming, I [Bishop] was using octave and delay effects, which I still do, and we asked our friend Dave about some good band names, something like Crowbar — awesome band == and something robotic. He said Crobot. Immediately I loved it. It took a little convincing for our drummer because there is already a Probot, but we don’t give a shit. It’s an awesome name and fits our band perfectly. After that one of the next songs we wrote was “The Legend Of The Space Born Killer,” which is about the mythological creature the Crobot: half-bird, half-bot, half-alien. And that sort of set the stage for our whole band.

PB: What are some of your biggest personal musical influences?

Crobot: We all have many different influences. Our drummer Keith is a huge jazz guy, but we all are influenced by a lot of classic stuff such as Zeppelin, Hendrix, Black Sabbath, Soundgarden, and so on and so on. Lots of stoner rock — i.e. Clutch, Queens Of The Stone Age, Kamchatka, and so on. And a bunch of funk — i.e. The Meters, James Brown, Sly & The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Bootsy Collins, Parliment. Those are the there elements of Crobot: classic rock, stoner rock, and funk.

PB: Should we expect any releases from the band this year?

Crobot: Yes. Right now, we are finalizing the dates for recording at Thorium Studios in St.Clair, Pa. No label yet — no rush, though. We want to make sure it’s the right fit. Until then, we will be pressing and releasing everything ourselves, or just burning discs and giving it out for free. We just want our music out there. We really believe in it.

Crobot will perform Thursday night, Feb. 2, at Pop-Break’s Shipwrecked At The Shore Showcase, with Those Mockingbirds and Only Living Boy at the Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, N.J. Tickets are $5 at the door, and you must be 21 years or older to enter. There are $2 Coors Light specials, shot specials and the kitchen at the bar will be open. There will also be a giveaway to the Holdfast record and clothing store in Asbury Park for all those who sign-up for Pop-Break’s newsletter.