Moros Eros

Warning: Anyone who feels the need or desire to pigeonhole
the music style of the groups they listen to may have their brains explode after listening to Moros Eros. This much is known: The music on their debut album, I Saw The Devil Last Night and Now the Sun Shines Bright, simultaneously rocks the gut as it dazzles the intellect. After that, you’re on your own. “It’s basically a themed album, but not a concept album,” explains singer/guitarist Zach Tipton. “It’s like Grimm’s FairyTales; they are all kinda dark, but they each have very different stories. I want you to get the feeling that every song on our album may be creepy or sad, but they’re really not connected at all. I purposely did that so people can sit and listen to it, then come to their own conclusions. It could prompt the thought, ‘I saw what evil is, but do I want it in my life?’ Or you could come away thinking, ‘After seeing the worst thing imaginable, everything seems more special.’”

We said you were on your own…

Born in East L.A., Tipton was booted from one parent’s house to the other parent’s house in Texas and then to his grandparents in Marietta, Georgia. There he started playing in bands and soon hooked up with drummer Bobby Theberge, keyboardist Chris Firebaugh and a female singer. Originally, they were a dance band, but Tipton soon tired of the sound. Instead of bringing in another guitarist, they picked up bassist Deejay Schulz, bid adieu to their female front person and started creating their wildly eclectic aural brew under the name of In Vitro.

At the beginning of 2006, they cut a three-song EP entitled I’m Dying But I Still Don’t See Anything, which threw a reviewer for Performance Magazine for a loop. He described one particular song as, “A radically experimental pop-fuzz piece worthy of The Flaming Lips’ most surreal moments.” That reviewer wasn’t alone, as Alternative Press hailed In Vitro as the best unsigned band of the month last March. As sales of their EP picked up, the band searched out Tony Brummel of Victory Records. Not long after that, they were signed.

As fate would have it, a French punk band secured the sole rights to the name In Vitro, but before you could scream, “Sacre Bleu!” Victory’s latest rock prodigies had changed their name to Moros Eros. Like so much of the band’s material, their new name also has a double meaning. “Moros” is Greek for impending doom, but is also the name of the son of the God of Night. “Eros” is the Greek God of Love. Somehow the name fits for this irresistibly eclectic brand of rock. “It’s a lot harder and crazier than anything we’ve ever done,” Tipton says of their debut album. “I wanted to create our own thing, to be dancey and hard-hitting rock and pop, and blend it all together into the weirdest, catchiest songs that don’t really fit in with anything else, but fit with us.”

Mission accomplished.

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