Drink Up Buttercup

Jim Harvey sure as hell ain’t kidding when he eases into the profoundly-psychedelic chorus of “Seasickness Pills”—the rather telling line, “we’re going on a trip.” After all, Drink Up Buttercup’s debut album (Born and Thrown On a Hook, out now on Yep Roc) is more than just a slightly twisted, undoubtedly delirious take on indie pop/rock and the sort of golden oldies that used to get Dick Clark all hot and bothered. For one thing, it’s an actual album, meant to unfold like a fractured cautionary tale with seamlessly-sequenced tracks, filler-free editing, and a trio of interludes that are more like waking dreams than actual songs. The thing even has a extensive music video breakdown on the band’s Vimeo page and conceptual cover art for a hidden track that doesn’t actually exist. “It’s our woman-who-just-killed-a-bunch-of-zombies-and-is-hiding-in-a-car track,” explains Harvey. Well, all right then. Another thing you might notice is how nothing is what it seems, how everything is a little ‘off’. “When I first met Jim,” says bassist/organist Ben Money, “I thought his songs were great but very polished. And, well, I come from a very unpolished background.” Which might explain what happened next: buzz-stirring shows featuring primitive percussion instruments, wildly-expressive bass lines, and such truly trip-inducing details as a melodica, tiny Casio keyboards and a Yamaha organ that’s crunchy and warm enough to suggest songs from a whole ’nother time and place. “The songs were weird to begin with,” says Harvey, “but when Ben came in, he brought an edge that made them harder.” “The band has this interesting dichotomy of what is beautiful against what is awful.” adds Money. “It’s a lot of contrasts—like really beautiful lyrics set to really dark melodies and vice versa.” The fact that the Philly band (rounded out by drummer Michael T. and multi-instrumentalist Farzad Houshiarnejad) is actually open to one another’s ideas certainly helps. “It’s not a push and pull so much as four very different, strong ideas,” explains Money. “We’ll both hear the same sentence but hear it differently, you know? And we respect each other’s opinions. In fact, we love to hear them.” And we love to hear the results, including the rabid stoner-rock grooves of “Heavy Hand,” the floor-filling one-two punch of “Doggy Head” and “Even Think,” and the controlled chaos of the aforementioned “Seasickness Pills,” a four-minute epic that ends like a Carnegie Hall chorus. As it turns out, one of Drink Up Buttercup’s many secret weapons is Harvey’s background as an opera singer. No, we are not shitting you. Dude’s killed solos for major parades, the White House, even the Baha Men. “I basically sounded like a 40 year old when I was 14,” he says. “People would basically say, ‘Jesus christ!’ the second I opened up my mouth.” We’re pretty sure you’re about to do the same. Buy Born and Thrown on a Hook in stores and on iTunes now. Hear some of the songs from the album on our Tracks tab.