Get our issue, highlights, free stuff and more!  

  • About MT
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • STORE
  • RSS Feeds

Detroit Metro Times home page.

  • NEWS
  • ARTS
  • CULTURE
  • MUSIC
  • SCREENS
  • FOOD+DRINK
  • CALENDAR
  • BLOGS
  • BEST OF
  • FREE STUFF
  • CLASSIFIEDS
  • MMJ
  • ARCHIVES
  • BLOWOUT
  • REFER LOCAL
News+Views Cover Stories News Hits Politics & Prejudices Stir It Up Higher Ground
Music Blahg News Blawg The B-Roll Reckless Eyeballing The Subterraneans
Arts Lit Up
Music Album Reviews Browse Local Music Music Events Add Your Act
Stories+Reviews Film Reviews Idiot Boxing Cheat Code
Food Stories Restaurant Reviews Find a Restaurant Find a Club Happy Hours Add a Restaurant Add a Club
Search Events Add an Event
Best of Detroit 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2004 2003 Best of Map
EVENT PHOTOS MT ON FACEBOOK MT ON TWITTER MT ON FLICKR
Classifieds Home Place an Ad Dating Real Estate Jobby Jobster
Culture Savage Love Motor City Cribs & Rides
Search Articles Search Authors Search Issues Latest Comments
BLOWOUT HOME HISTORY PRESS PHOTOS BLOWOUT BLOG
MEDICAL MARIJUANA HOME

Calendar

Restaurants

Clubs

  • Latest Comments
  • Popular Threads
  • Most Read
Most Read
  • The devil inside The people who attend this church swear they see miracles. Who's to argue? | 5/2/2012
  • The Whole truth That $5 million spent luring Whole Foods drives city’s independent grocers crazy | 5/16/2012
  • Your College Bucket List The must-do highlights of higher learning | 8/24/2011
  • Battleship Sinking ship — Plus, Rihanna plays a stoic weapons specialist! | 5/18/2012
  • Nutritional Value - Readers' Choice Our readers pick the best places to scarf, nosh, tipple and dine | 4/27/2011
  • Malcolm X — still controversial A recent biography stirs debate as the iconic black nationalist is honored in Detroit | 5/16/2012
  • Marijuana mea culpa Last week, we got some stuff wrong — but here’s the straight dope | 5/16/2012

Print Email

Blowout

Rise of the Prussian Empire

1 new member, 2 new records, limitless potential

Photo: , License: N/A

Prussia (l-r): Andrew Remdonek, Ryan Spencer, Brenton Bober, Drew Spencer, Adam Pressley.


Blowout 2011
  • The Blowout Handbook Four fab days, a couple hundred bands and shooting stars, previewed! | 3/2/2011
  • Of bats and beats Phantasmagoria mixes digital and organic sounds for a dreamy racket | 3/2/2011
  • Retro mods Schitzoid? Lo-fi? Now wave? Indie? Whatever Hi Speed Dubbing's sound is, it rocks! | 3/2/2011
  • The Voltron four! For Cold Men Young, it's about getting white and black audiences together - and tearing the house down | 3/2/2011
  • Rise of the Prussian Empire 1 new member, 2 new records, limitless potential | 3/2/2011
  • WTF? Drive-by interviews with Blowout acts ask, 'What's the, um, facts?' | 3/2/2011

By Travis R. Wright

Published: March 2, 2011

Last winter, Adam Pressley was living in Chicago, playing with Samuel Swinson's indie folk outfit, Ohtis. It was a good gig for the now 25-year-old guitarist. They made some beautiful tunes, as anyone can see online in the four quaint tunes recorded by music documentarians Single Barrel. But after band dynamics shifted from weird to rough, Pressley pulled a Mary J. Blige, said enough's enough, and looked east, to Detroit, where he'd made friends with fledging quirk-pop quartet Prussia.

That friendship happened, explains, Ryan Spencer, 25, Prussia's lead singer, by way of Woodbridge-based rust belt photographer Justin Ames' cantankerous musical taste. "Justin's my go-to guy for music recommendations," Spencer says. "He hates most new bands, hates local, Detroit bands — hates everybody. Not really everybody — you know what I mean. But he liked our band. And when Justin was living in Illinois, hating all their local bands, he really liked Ohtis. He hooked us up; we actually ended up liking each other."

"Liking each other" as in they eventually toured together and became friends.

So, the day after he quit Ohtis last February, Pressley rung up his Prussians comrades, who were on tour, letting them know of his recent escape from Ohtis and intention to immigrate. "I was like, 'Fuck this, I'm going to Prussia!'" Pressley recalls. "I pretty much told them I was going to join the band. Before I moved, we started sharing ideas. When I got there, we started playing. Recording came soon after that. Everything's happened kind of quick, but cool."

Having recorded two albums in 2008 and nothing since, the band was in need of something — or someone — to come along and shake things up.

One month after Pressley moved to Ferndale, into a house with the brothers Spencer (Ryan and brother-drummer Drew), the band started penning songs. Lots of them. Ryan Spencer, bassist Andrew Remdonek, 23, and multi-instrumentalist-vocalist Brenton Bober, also 23, handled most of the writing. Pressley proved himself an invaluable arranger and musician. "I suck at playing guitar," Ryan says. "Even just for playing out, it was awesome to have Adam with us because he can actually play it like it's an instrument."

Pressley busied himself with setting up Auto-tune Karaoke gigs — just what it sounds like — and he's developed a steady following for his gigs. But when he wasn't putting the T-Pain treatment on Journey for the drunk and the drugged, Pressley was working on producing beats for what would end up being last summer's Prussia Goes to the Disco: A Summer Mixtape, described aptly by the Mostly Midwest blog as "a viral digital release full of synth-y pop and notes of hip-hop." It's still available for download, but the 50 unique CDs distributed at a house party last August have, no doubt, been hoarded away by the same devout Prussian army types who recently packed the Old Miami, 300 strong, to catch a set by the band.

1 2 3 Next Page

> Email Travis R. Wright

We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.
comments powered by Disqus


News

News+Views

Politics & Prejudices

News Hits

Stir It Up

Higher Ground

Comics

Blogs

Music Blahg

News Blawg

Reckless Eyeballing

The B-Roll

Blowout Blog

Best of Detroit

Best of Detroit

Best of Detroit 2010

Best of Map

Music

Music Homepage

Album Reviews

Add Music Event

Search Music Events

Arts

Arts Homepage

Book Reviews

Culture

Culture Homepage

Savage Love

Motor City Cribs & Rides

Screens

Screens Homepage

Film Reviews

Idiot Boxing

Events

Calendar

Search Calendar Events

Enter Calendar Event

Food

Food Homepage

Find a Restaurant

Clubs

Find a Club

Web

MT Newsletter

MT@Facebook

MT@MySpace

MT@Flickr

MT@Twitter

MT@Youtube

Archives

Search Archives

Search Authors

Search Issues

Latest Comments

Classified

Classified Home

Place Ad

Jobs

Services

Stuff For Sale

Massage

Personals

Adult

Automotive

Cars, Trucks+More

Services

Real Estate

Real Estate

For Rent

Roommates

Contact Us

About us

Staff Directory

Advertise

National Advertising

Work Here

Metro Times Stuff

Win Free Stuff

Velvet Rope Photos

Event Photos

RSS Feed

 Full Feed

© 2012 Metro Times