You’d think the guys in Dizzy Balloon were the latest incarnation of Paul, George, John and Ringo the way the girls were carrying on tonight! There was no fainting or ripping hair out of the head, though, which was kind of disappointing — just homemade sign-touting, hypnotized teenyboppers who stood as close as they could to oogle the band and sing along to every word. The perfect foil for Noise Pop’s Tempo No Tempo (see other interview), DB’s musicians looked to the classic rock bands of the 60s and 70s for inspiration, and whose proto-punk-pop sound had the crowd in a craze after a few short riffs.

There’s a definite Beatles influence in the music, especially in Joey Orton’s piano playing and the perfectly-harmonized singing between frontman Petros and guitarist Jonny Flannes, which may remind you of John, Paul and George. But despite whatever vitriol you might have for the latest incarnation of punky pop-rock, the boys have talent, are undeniably infectious to the crowd, and, perhaps most surprisingly for this type of band, musically well-versed in theory. There’s even the left-field Iron Maiden-ish harmonized riffs for all the metal purists. And with piano belt buckles and carefree shaving half-naked in front of everyone backstage, you get the sense they don’t really care. I cornered the young punks in a small, run-down shack right behind Bottom of the Hill to talk about influences, past and present; an obsession with Red Bull, and to finally decipher The Queen influence, which I still can’t see. What I got were 5 friendly guys whose need to play music was based on a pure passion for the diverse genres they’d grown up listening to.

How do you think Queen fits into your sound? I get The Beatles, but not Freddie Mercury at all…

Petro: Actually Queen comes in a lot with the piano playing, I think. One thing that’s awesome about Queen is that the guitar doesn’t just chug along; it’s more of a classical sound. But every time we do a show, I hear at least 3 or 4 times, “Oh yeah, you sound like the singer from Queen.” I find that doubtful sometimes — if they really knew who Queen was, they’d probably say “Freddie,” cause almost everyone knows who he is. But who’d turn that compliment down? If someone thinks a certain section of a song sounds like Queen, that’s a huge thing.

So you think more of a Queen influence than McCartney?

Petro: I don’t know. I also like the way Paul sings.

Louie: I honestly don’t hear ANY of those guys in the vocals.

Nearly every band I’ve seen here has used keyboard of some sort– either synth-dance kind of stuff or harpsichords or piano sounds.

Joey: I grew up on old-school soul, so more stuff like Stevie Wonder and old hip-hop. 90′s G-Funk, 2-Pac. But what we do has this sort of bouncy feel to it. Kind of more Arctic Monkeys-ey, only with keyboards.

Can you talk gear a little bit?

Joey: I use a Yamaha CP-300 keyboard, which is great for piano sounds. Other than that I just run it through LogicPro on a midi controller for synths and stuff. I took classical piano as a kid, but after a while — I mean, 12 year-olds don’t like classical obviously, so then I got more into funk and soul and stuff. I bought this book called 2001 Pop Hits, and learned stuff out of that.

I noticed that like Tempo No Tempo, you guys had some videos done homemade with a hand-held, but for some of the other songs on that same album they were done the expensive way, with professional directors and everything.

Louie: The more you play out and tour around, the more interest you get. We’ve just started getting a bunch of offers — so many people are studying films. It’s getting to be one of the most popular majors. Some of them weren’t that good, so we had to sort of politely decline. But when 151 Productions offered, we had to take it; we saw the demo reel and it was awesome.

You guys seem way too happy to be from Oakland.

Louie: It’s not that bad a place.

Petro: It gets overshadowed by the bad places. But we live in Piedmont, which is so much nicer than a lot of other parts, I dunno. (to band) But I think we’ve all been mugged before, right?

Dizzy Balloon: Yep.

Louie: It’s really starting to get gentrified now. Every time I go home to Oakland, there’s always a new big fancy restaurant and stuff. But it’s about 3 to 4 degrees warmer there, and the fog always tapers off before it hits us, which is good.

Petro: Oakland’s kind of becoming the Brooklyn of the Bay Area. Brooklyn’s a lot nicer than Oakland, and Manhattan’s a lot nicer than San Francisco, but that’s sort of a safe comparison between the two. 20 years ago, there was much more rampant crime, like Brooklyn. But now it’s changing so much.

Joey: I’m actually not from the Bay area. I’m much more familiar with L.A. I got USC now, and it’s the south L.A. area. I love it. Some people think it’s so ghetto, but there’s so much cool shit to do there.

How did you guys all meet in high school?

Joey: That’s a story. There were two groups — one was called Panda and the other was called — and this is the gayest name ever, right?– Homeland Insecurity. I was in Panda with Jonny and Louie and a lot of the guys who are in Dizzy Balloon now, and Petro and Jonny also was in Homeland Insecurity. Then Panda recorded a demo and started getting real shows. Anyways, eventually we just sort of decided that we sounded very bad. We were kind of scared to perform on stage, and I was terrified behind the keyboards. We practiced, but we still sucked.

That was pretty recently, though. So what happened to keep the momentum going? How did Petro end up singing?

Joey: We got hooked up with Suburban Legends when they were getting really big in the Bay area. That helped our fan base a lot. It was our first official show. And we needed another guitarist, so Petro decided to make amends and try to join. He and Louie had gotten into a fight, and he’d been kind of a dick to me. The first time he met me, he just kept calling me “Georgie.” But to make up for it all he bought flowers and brought them to Louie. Louie’s dad even told him to have Petro sit in a lower chair, so they showed submission.

That’s an awesome belt by the way.

Joey: I’m trying for the maximum amount of hip-hop bling possible.

The more I think about it, the less your sounds and influences seem prevalent in the band.

Joey: Funny you mention that, we actually do a cover of “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” by Stevie Wonder. It’s just a little sped-up version.

How does it work with all of you going to different schools hundred of miles apart?

Joey: We just send each other Garage Band recordings. By the time we see each other next, we’ve pretty much got everything down and it’s pretty easy.

Words by Jeff Nau, Photos by Glenn Williams