Long before the Time Dragon raped the Laser Gods… I was hanging out with Technology vs. Horse on, bassist Matt Bitner’s and guitarist Rafe Heltsley’s, porch.

If they hadn’t been assembled there to meet the photographer and me, you’d never know that these five guys didn’t just spend most of their time chilling, knockin’ on each other just like this.

Mike Farmer, vocalist, occupied the moldy white plastic furniture, describing fake celebrity Twitter accounts he’d been following while Bitner showed drummer, Josh Hines and me, the stitches from his hernia operation. Not too long after, keyboardist, David Prater and Heltsley arrived and we went inside.

A big table was set up in front of the couch covered in ripped sheets of paper and a gridded game board. Bitner explained that it was for Dungeons & Dragons.

Prater talked about a trampoline he’d been setting up: twelve foot diameter with a surrounding net so you can fill it up with plastic balls. A 33-year-old web designer, Prater is the only band member with a kid.

They’re all working stiffs though—Rafe and Josh are both in local television and Farmer’s a blogger for the Courier-Journal’s alternative weekly.

When the photographer arrived, locations and costumes were animatedly discussed. “I think we ought to dress up in the vampire capes for the photos,” suggested Heltsey.

“Nah,” Farmer replied, “we want people to see what they’re going to see when they come to a show.” “So we should go stand in an empty room?” Hines said. All five band members fell apart in laughter. It was telling.

When we got back from the cemetery, the capes and fake blood put away, I asked Technology vs. Horse about being an off-beat working band in Bowling Green and the special kind of cynicism it breeds.

Farmer: We’ve been goofing off on the idea of ghost towns in Kentucky. Like, Fudge, Ky., Scuffletown, Shoulderblade—I mean like, abandoned towns. Not even small towns—no people no horse, nothing.

Bitner: And doing, like, a Live at Pompeii-type thing. Don’t advertise them or anything, either. Just disappear every weekend. And people would be like, “Hey, where are you guys going?” And we’d just say, “Nowhere.”

Heltsley: Just playing for no one. It’d be just like our shows now.

ROR: Why is it so hard to attract an audience?

Famer: That’s the problem. I can’t even describe what we do. I have to invent terms that don’t actually register with people. I’ve told people we play Japanese Pinball rock just because it gives them something else. If I said, “We play rock and roll.” Well, you know who else plays rock and roll? Everybody. We don’t sound like The White Stripes, but we play rock and roll, too. But we’re fucking weird.

Bitner: I think my favorite comparison was at Lanhuck’s when some guy was like, “Wow, you guys sound like Hawkwind meets Roxy Music.” Most often I hear Beefheart, Zappa and Ween. And that’s reasonable.

Hines: The worst was at Revolution when they were like, “And now, Bowling Green’s Tenacious D!”

Farmer: That’s the thing. If you give us all iPods and tell us to program them, they’re going to be wildly different. And there’s going to be stuff that repels the others.

Heltsley: Daphne and Celeste meets Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Hines: The other day when I gave David a ride I was listening to Chris Isaak, but he didn’t know it until just now.