The Party Tigers are nothing but straightforward and goal-oriented, as so many college students wish they were. The Eugene four-piece functions something like a mobile mirth machine, bringing its feline magic to dance parties across the city, ranging from house shows to larger events like tonight’s at the Indigo District or its Jan. 18 appearance at the Campbell Club.
The band formed when junior high school friends Jess Andrews and Nick Thomas-Low, who play drums and keyboards respectively, started recording songs as a duo.
“I was kind of bored of playing guitar, so I had this keyboard that I never really played,” Thomas-Low said. “It kind of started out like that, writing stuff that was fun.”
The sound was retro and danceable and bore little likeness to the sort of music the band members most listened to. Even so, the grooves were there, they were having fun, and soon enough the pair doubled with the addition of Chris Buehler on bass and Miles Davenport on guitar.
They were the Party Tigers.
The Tigers began working on a set of songs that would get feet moving in the live setting. Despite a range of influences from The Beatles to the Dillinger Escape Plan, the group sounds more like an homage to classics like the “Beverly Hills Cop” theme, a trend none of the members could fully explain.
“It seems like they would play something that was really just like ’80s montage music,” Buehler said, “and then from there it was like, ‘Man, that would be awesome if we had a band that had all songs like this.’ I think that’s kind of how it started.”

After writing a large part of the band’s catalog in the initial few weeks of playing together, the Party Tigers have continued to focus on compelling live performances, whether these take place in someone’s living room or a local bar, though Buehler admitted that the atmosphere and lack of a cover charge and pricey drinks can make a house a more exciting venue.
“(House parties) are more intimate, too,” Davenport said. “Everybody’s in your face and sweating on you and stuff. You can throw candy and balloons all around and nobody gives a shit.”
This relaxed environment is where the Tigers started, and the men’s house party roots show through in their love for crowd involvement and die-hard fans who come out to every show.
“We have a good probably 25 people that go to every show,” Buehler said.
These are the fans who already know the hand motions and roaring that accompany one of the band’s songs, and they might be seen wearing tiger masks or homemade T-shirts. According to the band, these people are an integral part of what makes a show fun, helping keep the crowd in a party mood.
The Party Tigers largely prefer to play drunk, even though they sometimes encounter problems getting the whole band and all its gear on stage after a few too many, but they don’t see it as a big deal.
“I feel like a lot of people that are watching us are either at that point or close to that point, so I feel like we can get away with it,” Buehler said.
If the crowd isn’t there yet, the Tigers are happy to help, citing a recent show at the Black Forest during which the band gave away its free drink tickets to dancers in the crowd.
“We’d pick people at the end of each song and be like, ‘All right, you danced the hardest, so go get a free drink at the bar,’ ’cause we get free drinks,” Buehler said.
But don’t let all this sharing, crowd participation and general affinity for good vibes fool you: The Party Tigers aren’t any sort of earthy.
“We are from Eugene, Oregon, and we do not have a singer, but that does not make us a jam band,” Buehler said. “No, we don’t listen to Phish, or String Cheese Incident.”
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