MUSIC

For Octopus Project, success on way to 10 years of having fun

Quest for creativity doesn't stop at band members' animal amps

By Patrick Caldwell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The scene is the final day of the 2008 Austin City Limits Music Festival. On a typically scorching September afternoon in Zilker Park, the four members of local indietronica quartet the Octopus Project giddily pound out the notes of "Truck," an endlessly bouncy anthem off 2007's "Hello, Avalanche."

As guitarists Josh Lambert, 31, and Ryan Figg, 29, reach their finger-flying crescendos, Lambert's wife, Yvonne, 31, lays down 8-bit "Mega Man"-styled keyboards, and 20 students from the Austin High School band rush onto the stage to join in.

For a crowd of kids accustomed to performing to half-interested peers in band halls, it was an all-too-rare glimpse of rock superstardom. For the Octopus Project, it was a shot in the arm.

"That was the coolest surprise about it. That hadn't really occurred to me, what it would be like for them," drummer Toto Miranda, 32, says. "But they were just freaking out. It took the whole thing to the next level and before long it was like 'Oh my God, I'm freaking out, too!' "

The performance is equal parts transcendent and apropos, a logical pairing of 20 youths and a band that is itself defined by childlike enthusiasm. It's also seen on one of seven videos and five songs available on the band's forthcoming EP "Golden Beds," which hits stores July 28. Containing music videos from throughout their career and a new version of a song — "Rorol" — from 2002's debut "Identification Parade," it provides a low-key-yet-fitting anniversary celebration for a band that, as of this summer, has been delighting audiences for 10 years.

The Octopus Project's roots extend to Houston, where bandmates Miranda, 32, and Yvonne Lambert, 31, grew up together and attended the same Sunday school. Josh Lambert, 31, and Yvonne Lambert met years later, when both were attending college after graduating early from high school.

"We were both already going to college in Houston, him at the University of St. Thomas and I was at the University of Houston," Yvonne says. "So when I met him I thought I was meeting this older college guy and he thought he was meeting this older college girl and it turns out we were both just super-nerds who had started college early."

All three wound up at the University of Texas. Miranda and Josh Lambert played in a number of bands around town, and eventually united as the Octopus Project. They played their first show in 1999 at the downtown space that then housed Ruta Maya and today is Halcyon coffeehouse.

"Maybe we're doing it better than we did then, because we really had no idea what the hell we were doing," Josh Lambert says. "But we were giving it a million percent, pounding our guitars and beating on the drums and having as much fun and being as crazy and loud as we possibly could. Which I feel like we're still doing, but we have a better handle on things."

"At that time it was just Josh and Toto playing together, with a drum machine. And I was at the show and I was totally blown away," Yvonne Lambert says. "It was just amazing and weird, but it made sense to me and my brain. So later on when they ended up needing somebody for more help, I offered."

Josh and Yvonne Lambert married in August 2001, and along with Miranda formed the core of the band, which would remain a constant as other musicians came and went during the years. Figg, the most recent addition, joined up in 2007. And the band's modus operandi snapped quickly into focus — catchy, eccentric instrumental pop tunes. As the years ticked by, the band pulled more and more instruments and sounds into their orbit, until their shows became tangles of wires, with members whirling about madly on stage, often switching instruments midsong. Slowly but surely, the defining characteristic of the Octopus Project became how hard they were to define.

"Identification Parade" brought local acclaim and Web buzz, which only increased with 2004's "One Ten Hundred Thousand Million," a sweeping collection of post-rock pleasures. The fan base began to grow substantially — a fan-driven MySpace campaign landed the band a spot at Coachella 2006 and they garnered multiple Austin Music Awards in 2007 (including best indie band and best miscellaneous instrumentalist for Yvonne Lambert on the Theremin).

And something else strange happened — between dressing its amplifiers up as ghost cats, including handmade stuffed animals and crafts among its merchandise and reusing characters and motifs, the Octopus Project crafted a unique aesthetic.

"When you want a T-shirt you have to design it yourself and print it yourself and you have to do your own album art and all that. And after a while we started to see the band, not even consciously, an avenue to do all this different kind of work," Miranda says. "As long as we're there and people are looking at us, let's put up this other thing people can look at. As long as we're selling CDs, why don't we make this other weird thing people can buy? And it's really encouraging that after awhile, people seem to be really excited about that, so you start to have confidence that anything we're excited about other people will probably be excited about. That gives you some real creative momentum."

That creative momentum continued on 2007's "Hello, Avalanche," which garnered positive buzz from media outlets ranging from Pitchfork to Rolling Stone. The Octopus Project was increasingly able to indulge in various adventures. Some, like their use of the Austin High band and a two-night stand performing an exclusive live score for animated short films at the Alamo Drafthouse, worked out. Others — an attempt at Pink Floyd-style inflatable animals resulted in half-deflated balloons — were less successful. Coating the stage at Emo's with aluminum foil to amplify the effects of a light show essentially created an oversized oven ("We were basically cooked alive," Yvonne says with a laugh). Fortunately, the successes outnumber the failures.

"We kind of have this pool of ridiculous ideas," Miranda says.

The ever-adventurous band plumbs new territory on "Golden Beds," which contains two songs with vocals, still a fairly new tool in the Octopus Project's arsenal. They'll follow it up with a national tour later this month and they hope a return to the studio in the fall to work on the next full-length. The Octopus Project of 10 years ago wouldn't have seen any of it coming — but then they've never been big on thinking much about the future. As anyone who has caught them live, all beaming smiles and youthful excitement, can attest, the Octopus Project simply love being the Octopus Project. As ever, the plan is to, in Miranda's words, "do more crazy music for more people."

"The intention wasn't to make it into a big deal," Miranda says. "But, still, sometimes we'll get up to play show in front of a bunch of people and I'll think 'Damn, all these people here who I've never met! Here to see my band! What's going on?' "

Octopus Project's 'Golden Beds' hits stores July 28 with seven videos and five songs (two with vocals — something newish for this Austin band). Containing music videos from throughout their career and a new version of a song — 'Rorol' — from 2002's debut 'Identification Parade,' the release is a low-key-yet-fitting anniversary celebration for a band that, as of this summer, has been delighting audiences for 10 years.

The Project is scheduled to perform Sunday at the Austin Fashion Awards. 5:30 p.m. Long Center for the Performing Arts. $39. 474-5664; thelongcenter.frontgate

solutions.com.

pcaldwell@statesman.com; 445-3835