These days, it’s commonplace for bands to gain fans through the networking orgy that is MySpace. Los Angeles-based duo Guns’n’Bombs, however, owes the site a bit more than the normal gratitude.
Via MySpace, Johnny Love, a long-time DJ and a Chicago hipster, was able to contact his future collaborator, ex-Junior Senior bassist and current Ima Robot bassist Filip Turbotito. Love sent Turbotito an invitation to his birthday party and a new friendship formed. After being evicted from his party-worn loft, Love opted to escape Chicago’s frigid winters and join the more progressive dance scene with Turbotito in L.A.
Experienced in making dance floors buckwild, Love’s style got a makeover when he joined Turbotito. Turbotito’s nuanced production crafted Love’s hummable melodies into rough-edged electro bangers. “I tend to be an old man about it,” Turbotito admits. “I’ll say, ‘You don’t know the rules of music. That’s impossible!’ Then we break the rules and it’s great.”
Though the group claims originators like Giorgio Moroder (an Italian synth master from the 70s) as influences, their gruff, dirty synths, liquid keyboard motifs, and buzzsaw basslines align them with harder electro groups like Justice and MSTRKRFT.
“I tend to be an old man about it. I’ll say, ‘You don’t know the rules of music. That’s impossible!’ Then we break the rules and it’s great.” -Filip Turbotito
With two tunes finished, Love directed his entire friends list, including French label Kitsuné Maison, to the Guns’n’Bombs MySpace page. This time MySpace played fairy godmother yet again – the label liked what they heard so much that they offered to sign the band and two weeks later the duo had a contract. Since then, Guns‘n’Bombs released its “Crossover Appeal” single, a vigorous mixtape for French blog Fluokids, and a remix of The Teenagers’ “Homecoming.”
This year, Guns’n’Bombs has plans for MSTRKRFT and Alex Gopher remixes, releasing an already in-the-works, full-length album, and more mixtapes.
– Steve Mizek