Cobra Starship Plans to Rocket into Racing Mode at the Rialto
By Gerald M. Gay, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
Feb. 15–Don’t be surprised to hear a little Super Mario Kart theme music thrown in the mix when Cobra Starship rocks the Rialto Monday night.
Frontman Gabe Saporta and his band are bonafide addicts when it comes to the Nintendo racing game.
It’s not uncommon for marathon sessions of Mario Kart madness to break out on the tour bus between shows.
“I’m the worst player by far,” Saporta said in a phone interview last week from Manhattan. “My favorite character is that baby mushroom dude. I collect all of the gold mushrooms on the track and then use them to fly over everyone near the end of the race. I rarely win, but when I do, I come out of nowhere.”
Now the group is looking for some new competition.
After every show on its current tour, two audience members will be chosen to hang out and throwdown with the dance-pop rockers in a Mario Kart head-to-head challenge with the band.
Potential competitors will be chosen from those who apply online via e-mail, prior to the show.
“We started playing on tour, and sometimes we would invite kids from the show to play, so we thought ‘Yo, why not make this a contest?’ ” said Saporta, 27.
Those chosen will also have their pick of one of everything — CDs, jewelry, women’s undies — from the merchandise table.
He added, “This is a way for people to come hang out on our tour bus with us, which is really kind of like our home.”
Saporta said that the whole point of Starship — originally a side project to his other emo group, Midtown — was to make these kinds of connections with its audience.
“We wanted to have a sense of community,” he added. “That is why I started playing music in the first place. My favorite bands growing up weren’t big, huge bands, and I never heard them outside of the concert setting, but I felt that I knew them by listening to their music. We want that connection.”
The singer originally set out to achieve that goal through the social networking site MySpace, writing a series of songs he planned to put online for free.
Then fate stepped in.
Thanks to a friendship with members of the band The Academy Is. . . , Cobra Starship landed the title song to the Internet-fueled 2006 cult film “Snakes on a Plane.”
The song, “Snakes on a Plane (Bring It),” launched the group’s popularity and served as the anchor for the band’s album — “While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets” — put out immediately after the movie’s release.
“The idea of the record was to capture the side of me that liked to go out and party,” Saporta said. “Part of me is serious and retrospective, and that is what I use to write songs for Midtown. The part of me that acts like a goofball, dances on the table and falls on the floor went into this one. If the world went to hell, this would be the record you would want to play at your end-of-the-world party.”
Saporta says fans should expect a lot of crowd interaction, some new dance moves and some stiff competition for two lucky fans at Monday’s performance.
“The band goes crazy in racing mode,” Saporta said. “I like the battle mode, too. I am completely psyched.” Cobra Starship in concert With: Cartel, Boys Like Girls and Permanent Me.
When: 7 p.m. Monday.
Where: Rialto Theatre, 318 E. Congress St.
Cost: $16. 740-1000.
Info: Want to play Mario Kart with Starship? Visit www.fueledby ramen.com/cobrastarship/ mariokart and follow the instructions.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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