Band of the Week: Colour Revolt

Hometown: Oxford, Miss.
Fun Fact: Three members of the band are also in a Pavement cover band that is so good it "even fucks up correctly."
Why Its Worth Watching: Colour Revolt combines the more adventurous side of indie rock with soaring dynamics and a Southern mentality.
For Fans Of: Radiohead, The Grifters, Modest Mouse

Colour Revolt has hardly glutted the marketplace with material in its three-year existence, but with good reason. In addition to the fact that all of the band members are just now wrapping up their collegiate educations at Ole Miss, Colour Revolt has also kept busy playing 150 shows a year. All this without mentioning the fact that the band's debut EP was picked up for a one-off re-release by a major label. Needless to say, Plunder, Beg, and Curse, the band's debut album, has been a long time coming.

"Really, we've just been trying to get through school," laughs bassist Patrick Addison. "We've been full-time students throughout this whole thing."

"Now that we're [graduating in May], we're really excited about being able to tour while school is actually in session," says guitarist Jimmy Cajoleas.

Despite their studies, these young men have put considerable effort into putting Colour Revolt on the road outside of their Oxford, Miss. home base. Even if that means embarking on some serious one-night stands.

"We do full tour circuits in a weekend, and that makes things kinda interesting," Addison says. "Last weekend, we were in Pennsylvania, just for a Saturday night show. And we came back for school on Monday."

"I was stuck on the midnight-to-7 a.m. driving shift," Cajoleas laughs. "It was sleeting outside, and I got so tired by about 5 a.m. that I just stuck my head out the window and let the sleet hit me until I woke up."

With the release of Plunder on Fat Possum, Colour Revolt has made a musical statement that manages to combine the atmospheric dynamics they've honed from those grueling road exercises with the prismatic reality of life in Oxford, a Deep South college town that's as proud of its literature as it is of its grits. Light years away from the more straightforward angular indie rock of the members' previous band (Fletcher), Colour Revolt's sound is bathed in a peculiar kind of swampy, sonic gravy that evokes the explorations of other underground bands—from The Grifters to Band of Horses—with roots below the Mason-Dixon Line.

"It's hard to deny our southern-ness," Addison says. "It's definitely there. We're definitely a southern band, but when we say 'southern rock,' we're not really talking about Skynyrd or even Drive-By Truckers."

"It seems to be an unfortunate genre cliché, the southern rock thing," Cajoleas continues. "Regionally, it makes sense, but the South is growing and changing. I would argue that the best southern record ever made was Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. It's not a traditional 'southern rock' record, but it's about family and God and sex and death. Those are the things you see in Southern literature."