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Travelin’ band

High on the impending release of debut studio EP Act Naturally, upstart regional pop rock band Royal Teeth splurged on a little Flaming Lips-style theatricality for its energetic, fan-converting set at Secret’s Out!, a successful music, art and food bonanza held inside the Hartley-Vey studio space at the Manship Theatre in May.

“The last thing you want to do is shoot off a confetti cannon and have everybody just watch,” drummer Josh Hefner says a few weeks later, miming a comically bored facial reaction to a flutter of imaginary confetti drifting overhead at a corner table inside Garden District Coffe. “But people actually really got into it.”

Turns out those confetti guns went down like most everything else with this young six-piece band. More often than not, Royal Teeth tries something, and despite the odds or apparent roadblocks, it simply works.

Recruit a lead vocalist who has never been in a band before—check. Choose a live record for the group’s very first release? Sure. Record a cover of a popular, mega-selling single for the band’s new EP—why not? Maintain split residences in Lafayette and New Orleans, and no one complains about the road trips.

“I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be able to do two or three rehearsals a week,” says Hefner, who lives in Lafayette with bassist Josh Wells and keyboardist Andrew Poe, while guitarist Steve Billeaud and co-lead singers Gary Larsen and Nora Patterson reside in New Orleans. “That’s just unheard of for us. We’re lucky that everyone is a good enough musician that we know what each other brings to the table. Our practices are just fine-tuning.”

As somewhat of a midpoint, Baton Rouge has benefited from this distance, but ironically, so has the band’s songwriting. Royal Teeth’s first collaborations were kick-started by email.

“Lots of our songs have developed from us just sending each other ideas on a whim,” Larsen says. The 22-year-old songwriter even contacted Patterson for the first time online.

“We emailed her, told her about the band and asked her to try out,” Larsen says. “A week later she was practicing with us, and she stuck with it. I think it’s easier, especially with the Internet, just to throw it out there. She could have just made up any excuse or said she was too busy if she wasn’t interested in the band, so it wasn’t too nerve wracking.”

The petals of Patterson’s collaboration with the band are in full bloom on Act Naturally, a five-track record finished in just 10 days in South Carolina with Shinedown’s Eric Bass producing.

Leadoff track “Wild” finds Patterson’s crystalline vocal hooks bounding in joyous romps over Larsen’s grounded narrative. “I believe I can make you scream for me,” she sings, like Debbie Harry without that hint of snarling in her voice, like a little girl flirting on the playground with her fingers firmly crossed behind her back.

The band’s bold, warmed-up rendition of The Knife’s 2003 chilled-out club single “Heartbeats” sounds like a long-lost New Wave hit from the early 1980s, bubbling over with dance floor pulses and thick kick drum echoes. Royal Teeth effortlessly makes this familiar song its own without having to radically reinvent the style of the track or compromise the character of the band.

Royal Teeth’s musicians are only interested in being themselves, following their instincts and enjoying the ride, Larsen says. If making music and having audiences respond well is a difficult thing—even with his band split between two cities more than 100 miles apart—it is news to him.

“Everything about this band has been easy so far,” Larsen says. “Lots of people do the guy-girl vocals thing, but we felt that we could take our own swing at it.” Act Naturally is available in stores and through online retailers now. facebook.com/royalteeth