There are many bands out there that take on gimmicks and not all are good. However, Masked Intruder, a multi-colored ski mask donning pop punk quartet with a dancing cop/roadie out of Madison, Wisconsin have been winning over audiences as far away as Europe and Australia with their extremely talented songwriting and hilarious stage show antics. It’s almost as if they’d rather us focus on their music, lyrics and personality than their identities, which is insanely easy, whether you’re listening to their albums or catching a show. I was lucky enough to catch them opening for Less Than Jake about a year ago despite the fact that I had never heard of them, let alone heard their music. I had the opportunity to interview Intruder Blue, their lead singer and one of their guitarists who also takes on songwriting, during a B & E he was pulling while he was doing dishes.
When it comes to crowd response, Intruder Blue pointed out that “If you play a show and you can play in front of a bunch of people, if you suck and nobody likes you, nobody’s having a good time, then it doesn’t matter; that show is just down the tubes. But if everyone’s having an awesome time, then everybody wants to come back and hang out more.”
Masked Intruder isn’t your run-of-the-mill pop punk band. Not that they’re the first to do it but they include a fairly heavy dose of classic pop like doo-wop. At moments, you’ll hear them sing accapella and include other fifties inspiration. From that era, some of their influences include The Four Seasons, Lesley Gore, Marvin Gaye and Al Green. That’s a very interesting mix with their character; one minute, they’re singing about stealing, and the next, they’re singing about their latest crushes.
Speaking of crushes, Intruder Blue mentioned that if they could perform with anyone, it would be Katy Perry, “mostly... because, you know, like she’s so beautiful. I just wanna meet her or, short of meeting her, I just wanna have access to the same catering that she does or catering provided by the same people because I figure that she’ll have her own green room.”
As far as beautiful women whom they have performed with, Masked Intruder recorded one of their most skillfully written tunes, “Heart Shaped Guitar,” as a duet with the very talented Maura Weaver of Cincinnati pop punk rock band Mixtapes in mind. She graciously accepted to offer her vocals to the song amidst her busy schedule, which really add to the quality of the song. It’s a song about serenading someone you love, who doesn’t even know you, in their front yard… at three in the morning. This song is a hysterical mix of perspectives, from an obsessed, stalking minstrel to an alarmed and repelled woman.
This is all tongue-and-cheek, almost, if not directly, poking fun at the pop punk mentality of love and women. Masked Intruder, on the other hand, find themselves attracting many, including those that you’d be shocked would be drawn to a masked punk band: girls.
Fat Mike’s (of NOFX fame) daughter is one, which “may be why he signed [them]... to Fat Wreck Chords… Fat Mike actually bought her like a heart shaped guitar, secretly, and had [them] all autograph it before one of [their] shows and then [they] brought her up on stage and gave her the guitar.”
Whether you’re a fan of punk or not, Masked Intruder is not a band to be missed. They bring something for nearly everyone and have the potential to entertain even music elitists. Masked Intruder is set to play The Yucca Tap Room in Tempe on April 1st with Seattle’s Success and locals The Venomous Pinks and LightSpeedGo. The show is all ages and tickets are $10.
~ Garyn Klasek
