Thunderheist Still Know How To Party

10/04/07 5:30pm

by Erik Leijon (CHARTattack)

Thunderheist don't intend to party for their right to fight.

"We don't want to necessarily be considered the party band," says group MC Isis.

Say it ain't so. Are Thunderheist, the Toronto (DJ Grahm recently made the move from Montreal) party rap duo known for ground-shaking electronic beats and an MC capable of getting even the pastiest of indie kids to work it and/or dust it off and jerk it, ready to take it down a notch?

Not exactly, and anyone who plans on checking them out on Friday during Pop Montreal should still expect the vodka and Red Bull to be consumed in excess, and for Grahm and Isis to quench our collective thirst for rapping set to Eurythmics samples. That being said, Isis and Grahm plan on retreating to the studio in the near future and to stay there until their first full-length hits stores in 2008.

"We really need to focus on the music while there's still hype around us," Isis says. "It's too easy to put your fingers in too many pots and, by the time the album is out, no one cares."

So far their recorded output is an EP made primarily to satiate audiences at their shows and a recently released 12-inch single for "Bubblegum" via Calgary-based Bigfoot Records. Isis says they have an idea on how to recreate the wild unpredictability of the live show for the new album.

"Grahm's beats, when you play them in the car with the right sub-woofer and the bass hits, it's so frickin' massive, it shakes you. Listeners will get that feeling without me telling you to shake."

The unlikely duo met online through their eventual manager, and the plan was for Grahm to lay down beats for Isis' solo hip-hop record. By accident, though, Grahm emailed her a remix he was working on for Baltimore-based hip-hop group Spank Rock. When he heard her rapping over the largely electronic track, an alliance was formed. It was only after they began recording that they finally met each other in person.

"It's old school hip-hop," says Isis. "We're part of this collective that's doing what's been done before, but doing it in a different way — kind of like what Daft Punk was doing in the '90s, or Run-DMC when they brought in guitars.

"We want to bring it back to the days of Afrika Bambaataa, when girls would go to a hip-hop show to dance."

No matter how serious Thunderheist become on their debut album — Isis suggests they may become bored with electronic music and bring in live guitars, drums and synths — the plan is to remain dedicated to providing an alcohol-fueled good time.

"I take pride in making sweet, innocent girls do very inappropriate things," Isis says. "Making them realize their potential is important to me, especially when they're just 18 and their parents see them shaking their booty on some random blog."

You can see Thunderheist make young ladies gyrate inappropriately at Montreal's Coda on Saturday and at Hamilton's Pepper Jack Cafe on Oct. 12.