The Rapture DJs

The moment they released the international dancefloor hit “House of Jealous Lovers” in 2002, New York quartet The Rapture redefined the tip of the indie iceberg fusing the skronk and chaos of punk with the precision and funk of basement after-party disco beats. The Rapture opened the floodgates for many to float through on the wave of this fresh take on some vintage, party-forward sounds.

While it’s easy to pin the influence of Gang of Four, ESG, and Liquid Liquid on many of the followers, The Rapture’s territory of beat mining goes deeper further and wider. The band have shown respect for forbearers as diverse as ‘70s New York disco progenitor Larry Levan, ‘80s Chicago acid house innovator Marshall Jefferson, historic party staples like Happy Mondays, The Gap Band, Bizzare Inc and Incredible Bongo Band, as well as unlikely sources like Sun Ra and Uriah Heep.

“We are living in an exciting time for music, in the sense that there are a lot of things up in the air” says vocalist/bassist Mattie Safer. “Hip Hop producers are making electro-house. Club DJs are playing ‘70s rock edits. Guitar players are listening to James Brown again. It’s like over the last 5 to 10 years everyone has thrown out what they knew and what they grew up in search of some new shit, and it’s all come together in a beautiful mess.”

“I think part of the problem with understanding our band is that people think we’re really schizophrenic,” says saxophonist/keyboardist/percussionist Gabriel Andruzzi. “We work in and out of a variety of styles, we have 2 singers, and I’m doing something different on every song!”

Perhaps the best way to understand The Rapture is to stop worrying about genres and labels and simply get into the music. The first new single from Pieces of the People We Love, “Get Myself Into It” is a sweltery dance floor cut fueled by a bobbing bassline and jagged guitar bursts, and embellished with sultry saxophone and echoey percussion that show The Rapture circa 2006 bringing the party forward and pushin’ the positive. “It reminds me of being at a big beach party on the Islands somewhere,” Jenner says. “I used to have this idea that vocals were somehow valid if they sounded painful. But this time, I decided that I don’t need to hide behind that and that it’s okay to make something sound happy.”

And the beat goes on. “Whoo! Alright – Yeah…Uh Huh” rides a cowbell-infused drumbeat and monochrome vocals to a glorious place that’s so infectious even the most jaded 24-party people could not resist. ‘The Sound’ combines big beat drums like Tomorrow Never Knows the size of an ocean wave and buzzing, blaring guitars resulting in a blissful lightning bolt crescendo.

On Echoes Jenner sang lead on 8 of the 11 titles, but this time around the vocals are an even split between Luke and Mattie (Jenner = Don Gon Do It, Get Myself Into It, The Devil, Calling Me, Live In Sunshine. Safer = Pieces of the People We Love, First Gear, Whoo! Alright-Yeah… Uh Huh, Down For So Long, The Sound). Songwriting duties were once again handled collectively by the 4 members. This time around however, there was an eye to further opening the process. “One of the big things this time was that everybody got to do what made them happy,” chimes in Jenner. “Instead of focusing on what other people were doing, we focused on our own parts… making them better and using that to influence the songwriting. It was a very constructive process.”

“Working together, we were able to better realize some of the things we were trying to do last time,” Safer says. “We became more confident with the songwriting, and since everybody was engaged and building it up, there were more ideas to work with.”

After growing up together in La Mesa, a sunny suburb of San Diego, Jenner and Roccoforte moved to San Francisco in 1997. In 1998 they formed The Rapture. They recorded their first single ‘The Chair That Squeaks’ b/w the Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Dumb Waiters’ and the 1999 Mirror EP, which featured eight noisy, unglued tracks that revealed an energetic batch of musicians that had yet to find their voice.

“Back then, we viewed our music as this self-destructive art form, and onstage we would be really confrontational and smash stuff,” says Jenner. “But slowly, we came out of that self-loathing vibe.” The band went through five keyboard players and two bassists over an 18-month period, during which time the members often had a budget of $5 a day each to eat. The Rapture’s bad luck began to change after they played a show in Washington, D.C. There, they met then 18-year-old Safer, who became their bassist and second vocalist. At their first concert with Safer, The Rapture met James Murphy, one-half of the production team of Death From Above (DFA), which signed on to work with the band on their EP Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks as well as their debut album. Early in the process, they cemented their future with the release of the undulating fireworks-and-champagne shout-a-thon single “House of Jealous Lovers,” which became a hit on dancefloors across the world shortly after it came out on DFA‚s titular start-up label.

“Most bands never get to have a song that has some sort of historical impact, and that song really did shape a lot of stuff,” Jenner says. “Plus, it marked the moment when the prospect of doing a band for a living became real.”

By May 2003, The Rapture were signed to Universal and that September they released the critically-acclaimed DFA-produced Echoes, which featured songs recorded over a six month period and completed a year prior to the Universal signing. The record was a misch masch of house, punk, funk, classic rock, and all else that is lovely. During the recording process, Safer’s cousin Gabriel Andruzzi was brought in to play saxophone and percussion and soon after became a full-time multi-instrumentalist. The Rapture toured for Echoes through December 2004.

In early 2005, writing for the new album began. They worked steadily through the spring, and that winter they set up in a friend’s studio and started recording demos.

“We had been on tour for years, so when we started writing again, we were all bursting with ideas,” says Andruzzi. “We were almost too excited at first because we all wanted to work on our own ideas and these clashes started happening, so we had to take a little time off to regroup.”

When The Rapture returned in early spring, they had learned how to work together and many of the best songs for Pieces of the People We Love, including “The Devil,” “Don Gon Do It” and “Get Myself Into It” were written in less than a day each. When all the new songs were demoed to their satisfaction, The Rapture started searching for producers. Instead of going with celebrity names, they hired British indie producers Ewan Pearson and Paul Epworth (Futureheads, Bloc Party, Goldfrapp) to work on the majority of the record.

“We have known Paul and Ewan for years and we knew both of them would kill to work on this,” Safer says. “They’re good and young and they get it. It was really easy to work with them and they worked with us instead of trying to work for themselves, which a lot of big producers try to do.”

While Epworth and Pearson produced the bulk of the disc, Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz) worked on the title track and “Calling Me.” “He definitely did not need to work on this record. He did it because he really wanted to,” Jenner says. “He was so enthusiastic and easy to work with. He was so into it.” From the hook-filled keyboard-laden electronic pop song “Don Gon Do It” to the swaggering funk-pumping “The Devil,” from the mindbending guitars, distorted electronic drums and sedated vocals of “Calling Me” to the mellower album closer “Live in Sunshine,” Pieces of the People We Love has something for every mood, genre and party preference. The Rapture are on the verge of becoming as important to dance music as their greatest heroes. This album is history in the making.