The Reploids

The Reploids play heavy alternative rock with psychedelic flavor in Austin, Texas. The band’s primary influences include early Smashing Pumpkins, Failure, and Hum. The Reploids rose from the ashes of local space-rock group Monument To No One when principal songwriters Eli Slate and Steve Anderson made the decision to continue their fruitful musical collaboration that resulted in the placement of the band’s song “Planetary” on the 2009 Exploding in Sound compilation. The Reploids came into being as an unnamed project in 2015, eventually taking their name from an obscure and out-of-print Stephen King short story from 1988 anthology Dark Visions about a mysterious stranger who is a last-minute replacement for Johnny Carson named Paladin who is later found to be carrying strange items indicating he is from an alternate reality. The chilling and foreboding atmosphere that King invokes in this story is a tonal match for what The Reploids conjure.

The members of the band took a circuitous path to find one another. Eli started playing music in Pittsburgh, PA in psych-punk band The Lurps (influenced by Helmet and also Failure), relocating to Austin in 2006. Steve grew up in, and was heavily influenced by, the 90s Dallas rock scene with an emphasis on Doosu, Course of Empire, and The Toadies. Eli and Steve met online the year after Eli moved to Austin and instantly bonded over a shared love of groundbreaking alternative rock, including such notable acts as The Smashing Pumpkins, Hum, Cave In, and Sunny Day Real Estate. They soon realized they had no choice but to embark upon a journey of sonic expression through exploration of these shared influences. After Monument To No One broke up, Eli and Steve reloaded as The Reploids, bringing in Eric Riser on drums, a twenty-year veteran of the Austin scene. Rob Bass soon joined the band to play bass, and the lineup was complete.

The Reploids incorporate lyrical themes of the vastness of time, while contrasting the connection between the inner psyche and outer space. The songs also explore ideas about subjective reality, the myth of objectivity, and questions about place and identity. These weighty topics are scored by a focused band dynamic that alternates between a propulsive groove and the whitewash sonic roar of feedback and effects pedals invoking the celestial infinite. Listeners walk out of a set by The Reploids with their ears ringing and heads spinning, pummeled and delighted in equal measure.