Abstract experimentation
OKC nerdy rock band Dr. Pants pivots with new album `Objectionable Object'
David Broyles admits that an all-instrumental album of experimental electronic music might be a strange choice for the first release in several years for his Oklahoma City “Nerd Power Groove Rock” band Dr. Pants.
But these are strange times. “I kind of am an advocate of strange music regardless of what's going on, but if the strangeness of the times we're living in helps provide a context for people to absorb something like this, then I'm OK with that,” said Broyles, the primary musician and songwriter for Dr. Pants.
“I had a professor when I was in undergrad in the `90s ... and we specifically looked at the album `Trout Mask
Replica' by Captain Beefheart. He said people like to talk about the 1960s, they like to talk about what it was like and the music that they listened to and how that all connected together. And he said, `Here's the deal, when I remember the `60s, this record is what the `60s felt like to me: It felt really strange, really chaotic, like really mind-bending, that kind of thing.' To some degree, I kind of hope that maybe there's that one person out there who maybe connects now with my record in that same way. Maybe a lot of people won't and in hindsight they'll be like, `Oh, 2020 felt like Coldplay' or whatever, but then somebody else will be like, `Well, actually 2020 to me felt like this.'”
Titled “Objectionable Object,” the abstract album premiered on Dr. Pants' Bandcamp earlier this month and expands to more streaming services Friday.
“The title kind of came from almost like me communicating my awareness that any number of people will probably like take issue with the project for any number of reasons: `It's too weird for me' or `I don't like electronic music' or `This isn't what I expect from Dr. Pants,' or whatever it is.' It was kind of like just me saying up front, `Yeah, I get it, I know.' No need to make a big deal out of it, just whoever is gonna like it is gonna like it, and the people who won't, don't. And we can just move on from there,” Broyles said.
Long break
Broyles took time off from his Oklahoma City nerdy rock band in 2014 to earn his master's degree in music composition at the University of Central Oklahoma. His Dr. Pants pursuits also have been squeezed as he's taken on teaching at the Academy of Contemporary Music at UCO, dealing with health issues and parenting his two children with fellow OKC singer-songwriter K.C. Clifford.
“I have some other, more sort of traditional type songs with lyrics that I've written that also reflects some of those experiences that just haven't seen the light of day yet,” Broyles said.
“I'm just one of those people that I just have a pretty broad range of interests in terms of kind of the music that I enjoy on some level. I have an appreciation for songs that have incredibly well put together and expressed narrative ideas, yes, absolutely. But then do I have love also for music that is way more on the abstract side.”
Broyles calls the project as “an electronic/experimental album, all instrumental, that reflects my love for nondance-oriented electronic music, `80s-'90s industrial music, and experimental sound collage.”
“I did a little bit of electronic composition when I was in grad school ... and, to be quite frank, the pieces I made when I was there, they were fine but there was also a part of me that was like, `I know I can do better than that.' ... So, I just started to kind of plug away at it,” he said. “I definitely feel like it's just an interest and an appreciation that has always been there. And I'm to the point in my life where I'm more interested in putting things out there that are sort of scratching the itch in terms of whatever I feel like doing at the time rather than trying to sort of toe some sort of line in terms of `This is what people think Dr. Pants is and so that's what it's going to continue to be.'”
Pandemic planning
Still, the songwriter, composer and YouTuber said he didn't plan for the electronic album to be the first new music from Dr. Pants in 2020. Since it is the band's 20th year, Broyles had multiple musical projects plotted, and he assembled the latest live lineup of the group in January to record most of a collection of rock songs.
But like so much else this year, his plans to release that project first were thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic. Unable to finish the full-band album, he decided to release his electronic experiment since it was already finished.
“So far, the feedback I've gotten on it has been mostly positive. I've had a couple people say like, `Boy, this just is not my thing. But I think if they can find anything in it that feels familiar, like latch onto that and sort of remember, `OK, that's the thing that I recognize' or' that's the thing that feels like this other thing that I know or appreciate,' from there, you've sort of got your foot in the water and it's easier to find your way in,” he said.