Is Ima Robot the quirkiest band to recently come out of LA? The Palm Trees, the pomade, the power vocals- all say yes. Coming straight out of a movie, it's easy to classify these LA fashion geeks as post-modern goons. However, the band Ima Robot is a force to be reckoned with. The trendiest name to hit the scenes since “emo”, Ima Robot is a sure sign of a new revolution in music.

SMASH recently got the opportunity to discuss the politics of the music business with Ima Robot bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen and guitarist Timmy “the Terror”. The dudes are twice my age, and had lot to say, so let the magic begin...

SM: Why did it take so long to get signed with all the popularity the band had achieved in LA?

TT: We weren't that concerned with getting signed. We didn’t understand the business and politics of the music business. We were just a band partying and having fun in LA and just developing a sound. Just kids hanging out. It was more of an essence, a passion. It was like, “We are doing this, we are Ima Robot, we are dope.” It was like kids on a rampage. Really clueless, but we just wanted to take over the world.

JM: When I joined the band in 2002, I heard guys that had all this genius and talent stacked up, but that were a little...schizophrenic. They had a sound...but the sound itself was schizophrenic. Coincident with the time I joined the band, it got focused and things happened really fast. When the band finally got it's identity it was quick.

TT: We had some pretty serious interest. Instead of taking some offers that were pretty bad, we decided to go into the studio and do demos with a producer. What came out of about 9 months of demo-ing is that we found ourselves in that process. We were with a semi-professional producer; we started to figure out there was a clock and we needed to get on it. It happened in a very natural way.

SM: Was the band a long time in the making, would you explain the process?

TT: Alex, me, and Olly started hanging out around 1998. We had just been put together by a couple of friends who wanted a project to manage. We just started doing stuff out of the gate- every day, all day, every night. We started performing a month after we met. It developed our style...which was just GO. No holds barred, just go with what we are feeling. We never let any outside influence in for those years before things started coming along. I think it's a cool way to develop because we were just raw.

SM: I think you still are.

TT: Ha...but at that point, raw and unlistenable…but still.

JM: Virgin was the most ideal label of the labels. The sound was there. The identity was formed.

SM: Your influences are sort of hard to pin point, how do you describe them?

JM: Certain people in the band bring a hip-hop influence, and also the same people bring a punk influence into the band. There's a litany of bands that we come together on; from Sparxx, to Devo, to Joy Division, to New Order. But the thing about Ima Robot is it really does consist of five guys that are all producers. All of us do other projects and have a history of our own. [random interruption from someone in the room] Are you guys in one of those 80's hair metal bands?! Oh no…you just got the hair. Sorry about that...my fault.

JM: That by the way is Doug Goodman. He's the Warped Tour accountant, and when I say Warped Tour accountant, I mean warped tour accountant (drum roll please).

SM: Ha. Just lovely. Soo...hair products? Which ones?

JM: MOP (modern organic hair products)...we are down with that. I rock a real mop as well. But this is called bus hair. This is called not showering for a couple days and this is what you wake up like in the morning. This is what we are...au-natural.

SM: I love the wardrobe. Please let me in on your secret.

JM: We shop a little bit on the road. I mean in LA there's plenty of hot spots to shop. We buy new, we buy used, whatever. Most of us are really cheap and we don't like spending a lot of money on clothes. Crossroads is a really hot spot in LA that you can get dope old fashioned shit that'd dirt cheap. Our singer Alec tends to make his own clothes out of garbage; like found objects, very random and very carefree.

TT: We all have an inherent style fascination. I'm totally fascinated by fashion and style. My girlfriend is a designer so we all fall under this umbrella of fashion ability. There's not a lot of effort. This shirt I'm wearing is the traditional garb of the Venetian waterway paddlers and when I was a tourist I wanted to look like one of them.

JM: Yes...it's really hot with your stained press pants and Louis Vuitton slip-ons. So fresh!

SM: Did the lead singer have any voice training or was he born with those pipes?

JM: NO.....it's raw. Really raw. So raw that sometimes he blows it out because he doesn’t know how far he can go.

SM: What is a normal first reaction to Ima Robot?

TT: It's always kind of jaw-dropping. When we play somewhere where we don't have a fan base, it's funny to watch. It starts out with utter confusion, then gets to whispering of “Ok, what the fuck is this.” In the end, we usually win over everyone we play for. Unless there's haters.

JM: We like performing...we like putting things on. We like putting it on.

SM: I still don't understand the name. Please help me out here guys.

TT: Ha. Yea...it's not easy to understand. The name is an inside thing. It came from the delirium of guys hanging out together for hours and days and weeks. It used to be Ima Robot with a question mark...it was a really stupid reference to a dumb idea.

JM: It turned out to be this commercially subversive thing where people put on these Ima Robot t-shirts and it's kind of a comment. It's kind of intriguing.

SM: Right...like how everyone nowadays is so standardized. Correct or no?

JM: Yep. That is generally the comment. That's one of the levels of the name for this. However, maybe someone who's wearing the Ima Robot t-shirt is so self-aware that they are wearing it that they realize “Ah yes. Everyone else around me is a robot and I'm counter culture, and I'm weird.” It's way cool.

TT: The music defines the name. You refer the music to it and then it makes sense.

JM: Senseless names become complete icons.

SM: What's it like to go back to LA? How's the fan base?

JM: It's great. This is not intended to be immodest but it’s turned out that we are one of the biggest bands from LA that still performs in LA. Like maybe how Jane’s Addiction was 10 years ago. That's a really exciting thing for a bunch of guys that were born and raised there.

TT: We love the kids. They keep coming back. They don’t stop. There's no leaning away. We see them, we recognize them, we hang out with them. It’s a blast.

JM: We owe them a lot. It's a big deal to us. We know we need to be there for them.

SM: If music were to stop for you guys, where would you find yourselves?

TT: Everyone has so much musicality in their lives. Justin has so much stuff going on in LA and everywhere. The rest of us are just planting seeds for careers in other things. Luckily, all being from LA and being connected, we could all spread our wings and do whatever we wanted probably. This just happens to be what we really want to do now.

SM: The song “Ex-Gfs, Black Jettas.” True story?

JM: Oh yea...all the songs are all really fucking personal. Like straight up personal. Here's the deal. I came up with the track at my house. Alec had this concept about something going on...every time he's see a black jetta driving down the street he'd be like “Oh my god, it's my ex, there she is, oh no, it's not? ok...good, keep driving." Just this completely nutty paranoia that overtook his whole psyche. The ironic thing is that Tim and Olly also have ex-girlfriends that drive Black Jettas.

TT: Who are very around in Hollywood.

JM: No joke.

TT: And their friends drive them. It's so weird.

JM: It's like a little sub-culture. Hipster girls in LA like that car for some reason.

TT: In 2000, they changed the body shape and added funky purple dashlights and everyone went out and bought one. Especially cute brunette girls in Hollywood.

JM: Isn’t that funny? That song is straight up auto-biography. No kidding. It's a favorite for most fans too. We wrote it on a lark. It was just some truism that Alec was going through. We liked it so much it ended up on our record and become a fan favorite so what the fuck? I don't know...it's cool.

SM: Great interview guys. Thanks.

J&T: Oh..thank you.

SM: Ah yes...rockstars. If only they were human. Ima Robot. Ura Robot. Goodbye.