Chatting With Brain Food Before the Farmer's Ball: "Our sound is like electronic angels giving birth to a dark velvet thundercloud."

Readers, when we selected Brain Food as the "dark horse" candidate for our Farmer's Ball picks last week, it was really a bit of a random choice.  Mainly we just liked the fact that they weren't mining the same vein as the ever-multiplying collection of LFK garage rockers and shoegazers.  Plus, they seemed like such a charming group of young scenesters!

After checking them out in person in the first round, we were indeed charmed by their bubbly, buoyant melding of electronic music and good old-fashioned songcraft.  And when the band ended up advancing to this Saturday's final round at the Bottleneck, we decided to sit down with the Brain Food gang (Joel, Demi, Eric, and Charlie) and find out what they were all about.

Make sure to like Brain Food on FB here, follow them on Twitter @BRAINFOODband , and check out their video for "I Am" (included after the interview) which was just released today in time to get you hyped for Saturday.  Warning:  it's a pretty yet terrifying Lynchian meditation on identity!

We hope you enjoy the interview below this important picture!

Chip: Tell us how the name Brain Food originated? Also, do you eat a special brain food diet prior to your shows to keep you sharp during performances?

Joel:  The Name: my friend Andy Fitzgerald and I made a rap song at some point during our high school careers and named the song "Brain Food". It wasn't until much later that I started using it as my music production alias that eventually turned into the full band we have now.

Demi:  We each have our own diet before. Joel drinks two beers, Eric drinks one beer, Charlie eats FroYo, and I drink a bunch of water. Our post show diet is fried food and alcohol. We deserve it, right?

Richard: I enjoyed the Farmer’s Ball set, which was bouncy and fun. The electronic aspect of the music sets you apart from much of the scene, or at least the side of the scene that I tend to encounter at the Replay.  How would you describe your own sound, ideally using a pompous Pitchfork-y sort of description?

Joel:  Artificially intelligent music generation software on the verge of gaining true consciousness with its perpetual understanding of what makes music soulful and beautiful. ß How is that for Pitch Forky!

Charlie:  Our sound is like electronic angels giving birth to a dark velvet thunder cloud.

Chip: I know you opened a show for Quiet Corral in KC recently. Those guys are getting to be a pretty big deal! How was that experience? Did their fans react well to your sound? And did Quiet Corral share some of their groupies with you?

Charlie:  Opening for Quiet Corral at the record bar was a great and fruitful experience. It was our first show away from home and we felt great energy and a positive reaction from the audience. I witnessed a lot of free-flowing body movements when our sound hit the listener and loud energy after each song.

Demi:  Yeah! We saw lots of people we didn’t know at all getting way down to our music which is such a great feeling.

Chip (muttering to himself):  Bands always ignore my groupie questions.

Richard: Besides yourselves, obviously, what do you think were the highlights of the first round of the Farmer’s Ball? Did you catch the opening set by Y[our[ Fri[end] and, if so, were you as transfixed as the rest of us scenesters?

Eric:  Y[our] Fri[end] was incredible.  I was so impressed with Taryn’s lyrics.  She isn’t messing around up there!  As a band, they had great energy too with really solid arrangements.  With them, Spirit is the Spirit, and Forrester, forget the competition… it's just going to be a great show!

Demi:  It was really exciting to play a show with so many people there to support local music. It made me feel good about Lawrence.

Chip: If you win the Farmer’s Ball, how do you plan to spend the money? And will you please set aside a bit of it to buy me a case of PBR?

Eric:  We are going to be touring a lot this summer, so a lot of that money will go towards feeding our big, happy van gasoline.  We definitely want to use it towards making more music videos, recording new music, and playing shows all over this fine nation!  Oh yeah, and maybe have one extravagant party.

Joel:  We have already decided that if we win we are going to have a big party for our friends and family who have given us so much support the past couple months.  We'll buy a couple kegs and finger foods and have a jolly ol' time, and I’ll buy you a case of PBR even if we don't win. WHY NOT?