At one of Man/Miracle’s first shows, people were jumping around, breaking glass and generally going crazy. “Who knows what the genesis of that was,” lead singer and guitarist Dylan Travis says, “but we decided it was the most fun we could have within the context of a rock band.” As they continued to play, becoming regulars in the Santa Cruz indie music scene, they found their audiences getting bigger and wilder. “Suddenly, people were making us crowd surf at our shows,” says Travis. “It was then that I finally realized what punk was all about. The energy was amazing.”
Four short years later, Man/Miracle is on the rise. The noise-pop quartet, now based in Oakland, has been mentioned by NPR, released a critically acclaimed album, received a positive review by the notoriously scathing Pitchfork, played its first SXSW Festival and embarked on a national tour with indie-rock fixture Rogue Wave. According to Travis, all the attention is still a bit surreal. “All this stuff is happening and it’s really exciting, but it’s also a little mind-boggling,” he says, speaking by phone from his rooftop in Oakland. “We’ve been putting it all together for such a long time, and things are finally starting to take form, but it doesn’t feel real yet.”
Before Man/Miracle was being touted as one of the great Bay Area up-and-comers, it was a Santa Cruz party band that cut its teeth playing local house concerts and coffeehouses.It had a reputation for stirring audiences into a frenzy with its high-energy balance of pop, rock and noise. But the momentum the band was creating came to an abrupt halt when Travis broke his back in a mountain biking accident. He was unable to play his guitar for six months, and it was a year before he could walk normally. “It definitely put us on a different track for a while,” he says. “When you can’t move, all you want to do is get up and run around, dance to some music and do a push-up or something, but you can’t.”
Once Travis was back in playing form, the band members decided to stretch their wings and move to Oakland. Santa Cruz live music laws had been instated, with their accompanying $800 fines, and the band was wondering where it was going to play. “The problem you keep running into as a rock band is that you need space to play where things can be loud and crazy,» Travis says. «Oakland provides that.”
Once they moved, however, things weren’t exactly as they had imagined. “When we first moved to Oakland, we were kind of a wreck,” says Travis, “We lived in a moldy basement with cockroaches everywhere. It was a crazy transition from the coastal villages that we had come from. But, there was a lot of creativity there, and in the end, it was really a good thing.”
The first full-length Man/Miracle album, entitled The Shape of Things, is tight, catchy and full of energy, and people are taking notice. Its mash-up of pop and experimental noise rock, Afropop and highlife has garnered the band numerous comparisons to Talking Heads, which doesn’t bother them at all. “There’s no denying that we love Talking Heads,” says Travis. “They’re an amazing band and we’re incredibly influenced by them.” The band’s goal, however, is not to appropriate music, but to deconstruct it and do interesting things with the elements. “We’re taking these disparate influences that seem irreconcilable and incorporating them into pop music and trying to make something listenable out of it.”
The band also relies heavily on audience feedback to see what is working, what makes people dance and sing along. “Our music is not just collaborative with the band, but with the audience as well,” says Travis. “It’s about everybody getting through hard times; overcoming your situation and making the best of it.”
MAN/MIRACLE opens for Rogue Wave on April 7 at 8pm at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Ave., Santa Cruz. Tickets are $18.90, available in advance at Streetlight Records and www.ticketweb.com.
