Today’s musical landscape is littered with bands with animal-themed names. Eugene alone has played host to musicians with monikers such as Deerhoof, Band of Horses and Tigercity, and that’s just in the past year. This Thursday, however, the animals on the marquee will be entirely fictional or misread, when Arctic Monkeys and Voxtrot take the McDonald Theatre stage.
The two bands have been together for the past month, tearing quickly across the country on a tour that finds Voxtrot a little fatigued, but nevertheless excited to be in the West.
According to Ramesh Srivastava, frontman for Voxtrot, it’s this part of the country where a band can really enjoy the tour.
“The whole West Coast has got to be, like, the most beautiful series of landscapes on the Earth, possibly. I think that’s usually enough,” Srivastava said. “Now that we’re in California I feel like (the tour) can only go up.”
Such eloquent turns of phrase should almost be expected of Srivastava, a gifted songwriter. The way “up” sees them playing to sold-out crowds in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and literally traveling upward on the map until Vancouver, B.C., where their stint as an opening act for Arctic Monkeys will come to an end.
The tedium of such a trek can only be magnified by the fact that Voxtrot has spent the tour behind an Arctic Monkeys tour bus, equipped with all the creature comforts for which Voxtrot might wish.
“I think the defining moment of this tour has been following around a band that has a bus, driving overnight about three out of every five nights that we play and having to sleep across a van seat and then get up and get on stage and play,” Srivastava said.
But that’s life in a band coming into its own the way Voxtrot has. With three official EPs under its belt and an LP released last spring, Voxtrot consistently provides fans with proof that it has the capability of delivering a range of sounds, from the pop melodies heard on its “Raised By Wolves” EP to the rockier, more exacting tunes found on its self-titled LP.
The transition is by no means harsh, but rather, sounds like a natural movement toward the Voxtrot sound. Srivastava attributes this in part to his and the band’s ability to transform pleasing elements from their favorite music into equally pleasing tunes with the distinct Voxtrot characteristic, a process he said resembles “trying to make a progressive composite of your favorite music.”
Put that way, Voxtrot seems to have an extremely difficult task, but the result produces Voxtrot’s unique sound: fresh and timeless. Voxtrot knows the formulas, but prefers to bend the rules, change a few ingredients and see if the band can refrain from releasing the pop song its listeners subconsciously have been waiting to hear for years.
If Voxtrot’s recent prolificacy is any indicator, fans can expect the band’s sound to continue to progress toward one thing: perfection.
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