Tim Radl
Brad Van (right) and Darwin Sampson will celebrate the album release with a March 10 show at High Noon Saloon.
Brad Van is a huge science fiction fan. Under the name Aftershock Retrogames, he buys, sells and trades classic arcade videogames — his all-time favorite is Joust, featuring a knight on a flying ostrich. He’s also a longtime musician whose current band, Droids Attack, will release a new album on Feb. 26 titled Sci-Fi or Die, a play on the “Skate or Die” battle cry of hardcore skateboarders.
“The old games are so simple,” says Van, who will turn 40 in March. “And, kind of like music, you can just get lost in them. When you have something good — music or videogames — you should just keep things simple and let them happen naturally.”
That explains the long delay between the release of Droids Attack’s third album, Must Destroy, in 2010, and Sci-Fi or Die. The stoner-rock/thrash-metal trio overcame some not-so-simple obstacles, including lineup changes and hard-drive crashes.
To celebrate the album’s completion, the band — featuring Van on guitar and vocals, bassist Darwin Sampson (also owner of the Frequency) and drummer Tony Brungraber — will throw a CD release party at the High Noon Saloon on March 10.
“In order to move forward, we knew we had to step it up,” Van says.
To that end, Sci-Fi or Die was recorded by Mark Whitcomb (Last Crack, Ben Sidran, the Kissers) at Madison’s DNA Studios to sound like a million bucks, and its 10 songs focus on ancient alien mythology.
“This is the closest that anybody has ever gotten to capturing us how we sound in my head,” Van says, adding that he played Whitcomb parts of several albums he liked so the producer could get a feel for the sound the Droids sought. “Mark is obsessed with getting the right sounds and ended up buying a whole bunch of equipment for his studio to accommodate us — microphones, compressors and a summing mixer that really beefed it up.”
The album sounds punchier than previous Droids Attack releases, with more harmonies, greater depth and even a few prog-rock overtones.
At Whitcomb’s recommendation, Sci-Fi or Die was mastered in New York City by Roger Liam, whose credits include Muse’s Black Holes and Revelations, the Violent Femmes’ live album Viva Wisconsin and the remastered version of Slayer’s South of Heaven. Local label Riff Reaper Records will release the CD.
Van — whom longtime followers of the Madison music scene may recall from the late-’90s jangly pop-rock band Daisy Head Mayzie — remains a fan of the CD format and went to great efforts to make special packaging for Sci-Fi or Die. The psychedelic Droids Attack logo is screen-printed on the jewel case with copper metallic ink, and Madison artist Eli Quinn designed the cover featuring a UFO disguised as a Peruvian temple. Inside, Quinn re-created the Nazca Lines — a series of ancient geoglyphs in southern Peru that some historians believe have celestial meaning.
Van hopes Sci-Fi or Die will widen the Droids Attack universe, though he’s not planning to quit his day job as a prep chef at Ian’s Pizza or his work with Aftershock. In addition to a loyal local fan base, Droids Attack has developed a large following in the Chicago area, and Van says the band likely will perform at September’s Riot Fest, a large three-day festival in Douglas Park featuring punk, rock, alternative, metal and hip-hop artists. It would be the band’s third time playing that festival in six years.
“I remember the first time we played Riot Fest,” Van says. “I was thinking, ‘This might be the most awesome thing we ever do.’”
