Duo builds following throughout county

Jagged guitar chords reverberate before the avalanche of drums cascade down.

And in an instant, the members of Brother O’ Brother are a flurry of energy. Guitarist Chris Banta and drummer Warner Swopes are constant motion, bouncing around stage like ping-pong balls.

The Johnson County residents love professional wrestling and monster trucks, and that bombast manifests itself in the music.

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“It’s all theatrics and over-the-top characters. The best wrestling tells a good story, and any performance worth its weight actually is a show. A lot of times that’s been lost, where people want to look real cool and have perfectly tailored whatever,” Banta said. “If you get off stage and you didn’t sweat at all, you didn’t really put on a show.”

With a bluesy garage rock sound, manic live shows and a devil-may-care attitude, Brother O’ Brother has built a following not just in central Indiana, but across the country. The Johnson County-based duo have a love for bare-bones rock, all roaring guitars and crashing drums, the effects of which are amplified when they perform live.

The duo’s emphasis on vinyl, particularly specialty creations such as LED-enhanced records and glow-in-the-dark discs, has added another element to their popularity.

“The more (custom vinyl) I’ve done, the more I’ve gone down the rabbit hole,” said Chris Banta, guitarist and vocalist for the group. “It’s been cool because it’s helped us as a band.”

Both members live in Johnson County — Banta in Franklin, Swopes in Whiteland. They’re married and have young children, but their supportive families have allowed them to continue their work as a band.

“We’re a testament that you can still tour, can still do all of it, but you have to have that good foundation at home. We’re very lucky,” Banta said.

A chance encounter at the hardware store led to the creation of Brother O’ Brother.

Both Banta and Swopes were performing in other bands in the area. The music scene in Johnson County is close-knit, so they’d inevitably crossed paths at shows here and there, though neither knew each other well.

“There are only so many bands in the area, and eventually, you’re going to play together,” Banta said.

After taking a break from music when his wife had a baby, Banta had an idea to form a grungy, high-energy garage band as his next musical project. He was having trouble finding a drummer, though. He was at Lowe’s buying rope one day and he recognized the employee who helped him — Swopes.

“I didn’t know his name, and he didn’t know mine, but I told him he looked really familiar, so I asked if he was in a band. He said yeah, and we started talking,” Banta said. “It was random, but I told him about the project, and asked if he wanted to take a stab at it. He said sure.”

Brother O’ Brother started as a three-piece group, but after about six months became a guitar-drums duo. Banta and Swopes have spent the past four years building a following, touring throughout the year and establishing themselves as a must-see act wherever they play.

They now play about 100 shows a year in locations as varied as St. Louis, Milwaukee and Orlando.

“It may seem like what we’re doing is silly to us, because we know how over-the-top it is. But we’ve gotten a really good reception pretty much everywhere we’ve gone,” Swopes said. “It’s such an odd feeling to have people love what we’re doing so much, and really, we’re just having fun doing it.”

Their love of vinyl has been a huge engine for their success. Banta has been a fan of the vinyl format since college. He was particularly intrigued by the custom designs that people were doing with records — using unique colors or even pressing up liquid-filled versions.

“I thought that, if I ever had a band, I’d love to put out a record like that,” Banta said. “As things continued to grow, I started getting into it and started experimenting. I needed people to know that I was making it, not just the label that we were on. So we started Romanus.”

Through their label, Romanus Records, Banta and Swopes ship vinyl records to 20 countries across the world. They have sold thousands of records.

With 14 artists under contract from all over the U.S. and Canada, they specialize in custom vinyl creations — such as splatter-painted versions and one filled with sand and dinosaur bones.

Seeing their LED record, with glowing pink lights flickering to life as the record started spinning on the turntable, is mesmerizing. LED lights strung throughout the vinyl record changed up with the music, going from pink to orange to green as the track continues.

“The custom stuff fetches such a premium. We’ll normally sell it for $60 to $80, and they’ll sell out almost instantaneously. That’s helped us get some big press we wouldn’t be able to get otherwise,” Banta said. “Then we’ve parlayed that, with these vinyl collectors, any time we go to these cities, we have such a strong fan base, we have people who come out to the shows even if we’ve never been there before.”

Throughout their career, Brother O’ Brother have done three full-length albums, a live record and numerous short EPs. Their new EP will come out in a few months, titled “Monster Truck.” The band will be working with Franklin-based Radical Racing for a video shoot with an actual monster truck.

They credit their close working relationship and friendship with being able to navigate the recording process in a straightforward way.

“It’s adapted and evolved so much over the years. We know exactly what we want now. It’s different than it was when we started, but it’s still based in that kind of sound,” Swopes said.

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Brother O’ Brother

What: A Johnson County-based bluesy garage rock band known for their energetic live shows. The duo also run their own label, Romanus Records.

Who: Guitarist and vocalist Chris Banta, drummer Warner Swopes

Information: brotherobrother.com, Facebook.com/BrotherOBrother, romanusrecords.myshopify.com

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Record Store Day Weekend

Where: Indy CD & Vinyl, 806 Broad Ripple Ave., Indianapolis

When: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday

What: A two-day event in celebration of Record Store Day featuring live music, including a performance by Johnson County-based band Brother O’ Brother. The event will also feature kids’ activities, a beer garden and food from Union Jack’s Pub and Kuma’s Corner.

Cost: Free admission

Schedule

Saturday

  • Noon: Evan Snyder
  • 1 p.m.: Nicholas Rowe
  • 2 p.m.: Duchess & A-Squared Industries
  • 5 p.m.: David Peck
  • 6 p.m.: Mark Tester
  • 7 p.m.: Chives

Sunday

  • 10 a.m.: Shoobee Loo Music + Movement
  • 11 a.m.: Mr. Daniel
  • Noon: Cosmic Preachers
  • 12:50 p.m.: Sarah Grain & The Billions Of Stars
  • 1:40 p.m.: KO
  • 2:30 p.m.: Michael Raintree (Oreo Jones + DMA)
  • 3:20 p.m.: Brother O’ Brother
  • 4:15 p.m.: Addison Agen
  • 5:15 p.m.: Bybye
  • 6:10 p.m.: Razor Shines
  • 7 p.m.: Ritual Howls

Information: indycdandvinyl.com/recordstoreday

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