A local band hailing from Milwaukee’s south side is giving surf music a unique update. With their debut album We Come In Peace, The Revomatics have picked up where classic California rock-n-roll left off.
Band founder Pete Flessas wanted to pay homage to the past and the genre itself, but also add a contemporary touch. He says his band takes the music into the future - a formidable and welcome challenge for this all-instrumental band.
"These groups, they kind of stopped evolving after '64, '65, and a lot of these groups became vocal bands. And we kind of looked at it like, let's do surf music as if it continued," says Flessas.
The Revomatics have garnered not only local attention, but have shared the stage with The B-52s, The Madeira and the legendary Dick Dale.
The focus of the new album is primarily on original work, pushing the envelope past covering nostalgic covers. We Come In Peace is full of nostalgic imagery from the science fiction B-movie alien abduction era.
While the album still contains the main elements of surf-rock, it also has new ingredients such as heavy bass, drums and others not typically associated with the genre.
"We're going to ditch the gimmicky stuff, we're not going to fall back on the predictable cultural elements of the 50s and 60s," says lead guitarist Drew DeLutio. "We're going to contemporize it, we're going to make it dramatic, we're going to make it big."
Check out a few live recordings from their in-studio session:
You can see The Revomatics live at their CD release show Friday evening at Lucky Joe’s Tiki Room near the Third Ward.