Listen up: Karma Elektra
Karma Elektra takes its name from actress/model Carmen Electra.
“I think it’s just kind of a very funny, silly name,” said lead singer/drummer Drew Ryan, 23. “We have a song called ‘I Wish Our Name Wasn’t Karma Elektra.’
“I think every boy at some point in their teenage years thinks that the kind of fake, plastic celebrity types like Jenny McCarthy are attractive in a kind of really mild way. Kind of in an obsessive way.”
Michael Donahue/The Commercial Appeal
Karma Elektra is (from left) bassist/singer Adam Hite, lead singer/drummer Drew Ryan, and guitarist/singer Daniel Drinkard.
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“Whenever anybody got Internet, the first thing they looked up was Carmen Electra pictures,” said guitarist/
background vocalist Daniel Drinkard, 23.
Ryan designed their logo: “A ‘K’ with a lightning bolt running through it.” The cover of their recently-released record, Six Songs, is a picture of Carmen Electra “with her eyes blacked out and lightning bolts coming out,” Drinkard said.
Some people refer to their band as “Carmen Electra,” said Bass player/background vocalist Adam Hite, 25, said people mistakenly call the band Carmen Electra, or , “A lot of people like to say “‘Carmen Electric,’ which isn’t even close,” he said.
“It’s pretty funny because a lot of the music that we play is influenced by ’90s style alternative rock and punk,” Ryan said.
They formed the band last summer. “We just really wanted to do something strictly for fun and strictly for the sake of being a band. Not taking anything too seriously. I think Daniel and I had the intention of wanting to write songs about skateboarding and things we were really into in high school. Everything that relates to being an adolescent. Our original intention was to write songs about things that don’t have to deal with responsibility in any way. Just being a kid and having a good time. But now I guess they take on a more significant meaning.
“You have a microphone and you can say whatever you want to say, so I think I’m exploiting that a little bit. ... A lot of the things we sing about are mostly rants. Things I decided to write out when I’m frustrated.”
On a trip to New York Ryan was amazed “just seeing that overwhelming mess that is Times Square.
“A lot of my frustrations are with everyday things I see. Like advertising logos and commercials and all this stuff (in the) oversaturated culture we have.” One of their songs, “Demographic,” is “just talking about how everybody has a number and there’s no personal connection, personal identification with anybody.”
Many of their songs are only 30 seconds long. “There’s not really any filler in the songs,” Drinkard said. “We play the parts and then we end it.”
“A lot of it is influenced from the early ’90s, late ’80s fast-style punk rock from the Washington, D.C., area,” Ryan said. Karma Elektra’s new record “was pressed at 45 rpm instead of 33, so it’s pretty quick. Three songs per side. There’s a whole no-nonsense approach to a lot of the bands that we draw influence from. ... A lot of that had to do with budget. People couldn’t afford to put out a full-length LP, so they just tried to consolidate their music.”
“That’s pretty much our situation,” said bass player/background vocalist Adam Hite, 25.
Karma Elektra shows are short, too. “We’ll play seven or eight songs in about 15 minutes,” Drinkard said. “‘It’s like ‘Bam. We’re done.’”
As for on-stage banter, Drinkard said, “We’ll talk a little bit between songs, but I don’t have anything to say, really.”
“My drum set tends to move a lot when we play,” Ryan said. “It scoots forward. So, after a song I’ll have to rearrange everything. We have to take little breaks. So, by default we have to talk. ... But I don’t think the three of us are very good at doing that in front of people. We tend to say ‘like’ and ‘um’ a whole lot.”
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