For a band whose music is so extrinsic, calculated and precise—okay, math rock—Battles still provides surprise and smiles. When they released the single, “Atlas,” a sprightly jam of ramping rhythm earlier this year, the Internets were a bit shocked that the band, noted as a cool, exclusively instrumental oddity, had added vocals. And not just any vocals; Battles had broken bread with a laboring battalion of chipmunks. The debut album on which “Atlas” appears is entitled Mirrored. It follows a furtive stream of cryptically-designed EPs that have earned the band a sizable digital following to coincide with the audiences they’ve entranced in the quasi-estranged physical space. Wisely sprinkling tra-la-la-esque vocals across compositions that are alien but never cold, Mirrored offers miles of mental Sims without driving a loved one’s arm to withdraw itself from your shoulder and glumly slither into the kitchen.

Unless you’re one of the people who like to do this or have seen their live show, giving much thought to Battles being actual human beings is uncommon. So, when bassist Dave Konopka segued into a lifelong dream of making his leg a Pezz that dispenses his dick as guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams (a founding member of math rock brass Don Caballero) shed his pants, the back room of downtown Miami’s Studio A narrowed in Kubrickian fashion. Drummer John Stanier, formerly of Helmet and a member of Tomahawk, is clearly the badass of the outfit, while multi-tasker Tyondai Braxton, talented son of Toni Braxton or feted jazz composer Anthony Braxton, politely lobbed straight answers at a conversational wall dripping with smarm, charisma, and summer shit-kicking. Don’t blame me.

Only when the tape recorder was turned off did the band begin talking about launching a Molotav cocktail into the New Times building and how lonely they were on tour. Then they proceeded to take the stage on a rainy night and make several hundred people achieve that look of awe, like Christopher Walken when he high-fives those UFO drivers in Communion.

ignore: Is there a story behind the band’s yellow drum kit?

John: The yellow drum kit? Well, it's really old and they were like, “You can pick any color drum kit you want,” and I said, “Yellow.” They don't make that color either.

That's it? It’s become sort of a symbol for the band…

Tyondai: John ate a thousand bananas in a contest and won that drum kit, if you want the real truth.

So, what do you have pegged as the song of the summer?

John: Definitely “Atlas.”

Besides Battles’ songs...

Ian: Tomahawk, that “Antelope” song.
John: Yeah… “Antelope Ceremony” by Tomahawk.
Tyondai: I kind of like that Rhianna song “Umbrella.”
Dave: I don't know of any current smash hits.
Tyondai: You don't like that “Umbrella” song? “...Dunnananana together Dudunananaan you can stand up.”
Ian: “I Saw the Light” by Todd Rundgren.

Did you guys ever go to summer camp?

Dave: I went to summer camp, Wooster Academy Sports Camp for one summer and I fucking hated it and I was like, “I'm never coming back here.”
Tyondai: Been to summer camp? I went there and I was molested.

What kind of imagery does your music bring to your head?

Ian: The end of 2001 with all those colors coming at you.
John: [Pause] I see images of girls and money.
Tyondai: For me, it's like each line in our songs is like a character in a really amateur play.
John: Amateur play?
Tyondai: Yeah, like little elementary school children running around in a play.
Dave: I picture it in blocks of color divided by negative space.

Do you like hearing your songs remixed?

John: So far.
Dave: Ty and I did a remix last night. We stayed at John's friend Bobby's house. Bobby has two children, and we slept in their bunk beds. This morning Ty and I woke up and cleaned their room for them, and sorted all of their toys, and placed them neatly in their closet and hung their baseball mitts where they're supposed to hang.
Tyondai: It's called a “live remix.”
Dave: We remixed the children's room.
John: Bobby is not the perfect father figure because he plays bass in Soulfly.
Dave: What's wrong with playing bass?
John: Well for one Dave, you're an alcoholic. Bass players are alcoholics.

What albums influenced you the most?

Tyondai: I could say a record for me I listened to in the van today that kind of refreshed my memory on stuff I really liked was Christian Marclay. He was kind of a performance art DJ, and he does a lot of weird things for records. He was like the master of bizarre mash-ups. Before mashing two bizarre records together was cool, he kind of did that whole thing.
Dave: For me it was Don Cabellero’s What Burns Never Returns.
Ian: Oh…wait…I was in that band.
Dave: All right! And right before that was Helmet’s Meantime and right before that was this band called Milkweed Dirge. They had an album called Echnolusion.

You guys play Europe an awful lot. Are there any differences between the audiences over there and how you're perceived in America?

Ian: My keyboard broke in France and I was trying to explain to the audience that it was broken and they said, “Speak French!” and yelled at me. That doesn't happen in Tampa.
Tyondai: They'll say, “Speak cracker!”
Ian: No, “Speak Portuguese!”
Tyondai: Yeah the main difference over there is that the audiences come up to you and say, “Bur dur dah dah” and you'll say, “I don't understand what you're saying, speak English.”

I say your music comes off as robotic. You respond how?

Ian: Well, only two of us have souls.

And who are those two?

John: Can't you tell?
Ian: I think it's pretty obvious.
Tyondai: Two of us are souless sinners. Pretty much after I got arrested my social worker said you can either go to jail or be in a band.

What were you arrested for?

Tyondai: Rocking too hard.

Is there a compartment in your mind that hates touring?

Tyondai: Well my girlfriend and my family are at home. You know, fuck 'em, right?
John: I think that all I'm concerned about is just me. Me, me, me. Every- day. No one else really matters. I'm just into pleasing my self in one way or another.

You guys all have a lot of other stuff going on, so is Battles the main thing for the next 10 years? Twenty years? Is this the band you most want to be remembered for?

Tyondai: Well, like you said we all have other projects that we're doing but we take this very seriously. I feel like the ultimate way to be serious is to stretch out and do other things, because it allows the band to last longer. At the same time, we just put this record out. We're touring for a year on it. It's a pretty serious commitment.

This band came together as a result of advertising, right?

John: Yeah, we all worked in advertising.
Ian: I put an ad in, it wasn't even the Village Voice. It was the New Jersey Herald. I had the guy from Helmet, the guy from Metallica, and the guy from Ozzy all try out. My dream drummer was actually the guy from Bon Jovi. Dave: Tico Torres.
Ian: But he didn't show up, so we went with the guy from Helmet.

What kind of energy to you like to get from the audience?

Tyondai: The great thing about this band is that we don't send instructions on how to react. I'm not going to fault you if you react in a very personal way.

Dave: If you start peeing on John's drum kit because you're so into it, I wouldn't be into that. I'd probably kick your ass, but other than that... Tyondai: Seriously, there's not a right reaction. If people want to absorb it...
John: Masturbate.
Dave: Watch the back of the room tonight, there's a lot of “masturbates” in the crowd.
Tyondai: Are we making you uncomfortable right now?

No, I'm always uncomfortable. What are you favorite haunts in the summer in New York?

Dave: The G-spot.
Tyondai: Prospect Park.
Ian: I, uh, hang out at the Statue of Liberty a lot.
Dave: “Ian? What's going on man? Oh, you're at the Statue of Liberty? Yeah, I'm probably going to swing by there in a while.”
Tyondai: I remember for the first year I moved to New York I would walk by the south side of New York and I'd see Ian in front of the Statue of Liberty motionless just looking at it. Quiet. In quiet solitude, standing just like her.
Dave: Now he just kind of sits on the sandals.
Tyondai: Yeah, I don't know. You can find me at home. I don't really go out.

[Some dude comes in and the band sends him out for coffee.]

You guys like a good caffeine and beer buzz before you perform, huh?

John: I’ve been trying to get these guys into these pills for a while now called Truckers Love It. You can only get them at T.A. truck stops. It's basically like legal speed, but it's herbal. It has a picture of a truck on it.

Ian: Well, alright.

[laughs]

Dave: We're at an unfortunate point in our careers where people don't feel that they should be opening for us and some people can't afford to open for us. It's hard to coordinate an opening act.
Tyondai: It's hard to find an opening act that will tour with us for free and carry our gear. Well, one that's good.
Ian: Well, this band [Dance, Jenny] is cool because we just sent them to get coffee for us.
Tyondai: We're very sarcastic.