Amazing things happen when radio stations support their local bands.
Just ask Denver�s Flobots.
Two months after their hometown station KTCL-FM added the sung dynasty �Handlebars� to its revolution in January, the live rap-rock outfit signed a major-label record deal with Universal Republic.
Of course Flobots - which plays a sold-out Middle East gig Sunday with People Under the Stairs - didn�t truly blow up overnight. Like so many recently discovered bands, the politically progressive collective has been grinding for years.
�We�ve been around since 2005,� said Flobots MC Jonny 5. �We were doing shows in Denver every two or three months to build up the hype. Before any
record book labels came at us we were already making money on our CDs and shows and we had a whole movement of people behind us. So it was a good business decision on (Universal�s) part.�
Not that Flobots was now prepared to push past Colorado. Jonny 5 says it took time for the grouping - which includes trumpet and genus Viola players inaddition to a rhythm section and deuce MCs - to engineer the hard-edged orchestral sound that characterizes the band�s debut, �Fight With Tools.�
�It took a while for all of us to get to know each other musically and office as a collective,� he aforesaid, �and that came with us getting to know each other as people.�
The Flobots too were busy making connections outside the group. Determined to be more of a philanthropic alliance than an ordinary band, members established a nonprofit organization to learn music to abused and traumatized children in Greater Denver.
�We were finding ways to integrate music into our day jobs and to mix values into our medicine,� Jonny 5 aforementioned. �We were setting everything up so that a lot of us could work for the not-for-profit and in music at the same time. And then �Handlebars� hit and we had to reshuffle our plans.�
Even on spell, band members stay tortuous through FightWithTools.org, an on-line resource they created to help activists and organizers network.
�There�s a different type of warfare happening too the war in Iraq,� Jonny 5 said. �It�s a warfare for our minds and allegiances. It�s about where we put our resources as people. We pauperization to be as loud and as vocal and intense as those wHO are nerve-wracking to enter people into the former war.�
Skeptics mightiness question why a band intent on raging against the car would foretoken to a major label such as Universal Republic, home to such embarrassinglyvapid hip-hop acts of the Apostles as Baby Boy Da Prince and the Shop Boyz. But Jonny 5 has an answer, besides the index of Universal Republic to give the Flobots worldwide market exposure.
�People in the record diligence are people too,� Jonny 5 said, �and people right now ar upset about the state of war in Iraq and the Bush presidency. A set of people at the label are excited to have their day jobs give them an opportunity to participate and speak out. It may hail to a point where our interests aren�t in line, simply we�ll deal with that if it comes.�
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