It’s dark at the Rock and Roll Hotel—a grungy H St. club in the heart of the Atlas District—and Rob Pierangeli, the front man of Casper Bangs, is urging the crowd to come closer to the stage.
He darts out into the gallery, beckoning the audience forwards with his hands. This will be a lot more fun without five feet of space in front of the stage, he seems to be saying. It’s this exuberance and seeming desire for closeness to the crowd that has helped Casper Bands rise to the upper echelons of the D.C. music scene.
It didn’t take long for the crowd’s initial reluctance to evaporate. Towards the front, everyone danced to “Always On,” an upbeat tune based around staccato keyboards and drummer Dennis Manuel’s sharp rhythm.
Pierangeli is no stranger to the local scene. The Hard Tomorrows, his earlier, grittier project, generated praise from local media like DCist and Washington City Paper. At the end of a two-year hiatus from live music, he began recording again in his free time last May. This process spawned the songs that would become Casper Bangs’s catalog.
Though not yet signed to a label, Casper Bangs recently released a self-titled, free five-song EP for download. Pierangeli is the driving force on the album, playing every instrument on the recording except for the drums.
Pierangeli’s diverse musical influences can be heard in the loud and distorted yet carefully controlled interludes that factor prominently into his stage show.
“I come from a pop background but I also like noise pop, with things like Jesus and Mary Chain, and My Bloody Valentine,” Pierangeli said.
He also finds inspiration in his turbulent personal life. A former girlfriend, Katherine Bangs, lends her moniker to the last half of the band’s name. When the relationship went sour, he decided to keep the name and draw on the experience for songs about love—the joys when it’s good and the pain when it falls apart.
Pierangeli laughed when asked how that was working out.
“It’s definitely a bit unusual,” he said. “The songs were written at a very pleasant time in my life and it’s been really fun to have this all come together.”
His romantic endeavors contribute to more than just the brand’s name. In “Katherine,” another ode to his former flame, Pierangeli laments, “Don’t you go away… I need you to always stay right by me.” Later in the set, during “The Other Half,” he sings, “I lost/she was my better half/I lost you.”
With a dwindling D.C. music scene offering little support to up-and-comers, it’s hard for local bands to really gain momentum. But thanks to a string of successful shows in both D.C. and New York, Casper Bangs has built a strong reputation extending beyond the District.
The band will be traveling to Austin in March for South by Southwest, affording them the opportunity to extend their fan base nationwide. See them now at local clubs like the Black Cat, DC9, and Arlington’s IOTA, because the days of Pierangeli needing to pull the crowd forward are dwindling—pretty soon you’ll be fighting your way to the front.
