 by Rob van Alstyne
It’s spring 2003: Caleb Rick, a ski bum in Colorado who’s gradually been learning the guitar, calls up his old high school buddy Scott Hefte, then wrapping up graduate school in Ohio. A question is posed, “Will you move back to Minnesota with me and start a band?” This is the unlikely story of the birth of Superdanger, who in two and a half years have morphed from a seemingly half-baked idea into one of the Twin Cities most promising power pop outfits.
 “Caleb
called me and basically said, ‘I bought an electric guitar and want to
start a band—you’ve got to play the bass,’” recalls
Hefte. “At that point in time I knew how to play the guitar a little but
had never even touched a bass, I was a trumpet major in college and primarily
played the piano. Still, it seemed like something that would be fun to try so
I wrote some songs on the guitar. We got together and it sounded really bad,
Caleb couldn’t really sing to start out with … I couldn’t
really play the bass. So of course we decided we needed a drummer! I knew that
Jake [Hanson] really wanted to play drums so I suggested that idea to Caleb
and he went for it. As it turns out, Jake had never really played the drums
before, so he was pretty bad to start with, too. We weren’t exactly taking
it very seriously.”
Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Superdanger eventually honed their sound
through extensive practice and gigging, finding themselves on numerous quality
bills as a result of both their extensive connections to the local music scene—Rick
is a producer for local variety show “Nate on Drums,” Hanson is
best known for his guitar work in Cowboy Curtis and Hefte also fronts keyboard-driven
pop trio Seymore Saves the World—and their instantly invigorating sound,
a youthful take on classic pogo friendly rock in the vein of mid-period Superchunk
and the Pixies. “The more we played together the more fun it got to be,”
claims Hefte. “Caleb’s actually pretty good at the guitar.”
A four-track EP recorded in a rural Wisconsin cabin with the Tapes n’
Tapes crew and mixed by Ev Olcott (of Halloween, Alaska) first introduced Superdanger
to the local masses. The combination of Rick’s buzz-saw guitars and clipped
Shins-styled nasality with Hefte’s boyish Ben Folds-ian croon and a lock
step rhythm section proved instantly popular. A deluge of near-constant gigging
followed in the wake of the EP’s release in March of last year.
“Our philosophy behind playing shows is that we’ll play virtually
anything,” states Rick of Superdanger’s typically busy schedule.
“We seem to have a lot of friends in the Minneapolis music scene so we
get asked to play a lot and we never turn down shows; that’s resulted
in a lot more gigs than we ever planned on. It definitely helped as far as getting
our stuff together and tightening up the band before making a real record though.”
 And
now comes the release of that record, entitled Fight, Fight, Fight, on
local label Afternoon Records.
At the still none-too-old age of 27, Hefte and Rick qualify as gray beards among
the typically hovering-around-legal-drinking-age artist roster of AR and at
first Superdanger, with their boyish harmonies and blatantly pop melodies, seem
an unlikely fit for the harder-edged label.
“Jake [Hanson] knew Ian [Anderson, co-founder of the record label and
guitarist in Aneuretical] a little bit,” says Hefte. “He just gave
him a copy of our demo and he really liked it. They had already decided they
wanted to work with us before seeing us play live. Fortunately we didn’t
disappoint them.”
Eleven tracks split between Hefte and Rick on lead vocals, Fight, Fight,
Fight is an aptly titled collection of crisp and punchy rock. The record
is very clearly the product of two markedly different songwriters—one
could never confuse the bobbing semi-’70s-styled-smoothness of Hefte’s
“Like Trap” with the prickly post-punk jangle of Rick’s “Johan.”
Superdanger’s diversity of sound, while working strictly within the often
narrow confines of the power trio format (electric guitar/bass/drums), is part
of what makes listening to them consistently compelling.
“We don’t collaborate on the writing of the songs at all,”
says Rick. “We’ve never sat down and written songs together. The
songs I sing, I wrote; the songs he sings, he wrote. Obviously you’ve
got to be comfortable playing it at the end of the
day, though.”
“For the most part. I write my songs on the guitar and then Caleb rewrites
them,” says Hefte stifling a laugh. “He’ll like the song but
sort of recast the guitar part into something he feels comfortable playing,
he always comes through with something. My songs sort of get picked apart in
Superdanger as compared to the writing I do in Seymore Saves the World. I lose
a lot of control over it and it’s a different sort of thing. It definitely
feels like more of a collaboration, which I like.”
 With
Cowboy Curtis about to unveil their much-anticipated sophomore album in March,
Seymore Saves the World still an active entity with new songs in the can, and
“Nate On Drums” hurtling towards its third season, it’s unlikely
that Superdanger will ever become the members’ sole creative outlet. But
that doesn’t mean they aren’t enjoying every second spent on the
project to the fullest.
“This is something we didn’t really take seriously even for the
whole first year that we were playing shows,” says Hefte. His point is
driven home by the fact that the band was self-deprecatingly known as Caleb
the Jerk during this period. “If people wanted to come see us it was cool;
if not, fine. Even the early recording we did just kind of happened. But now
with things like Afternoon Records getting involved, doing some radio appearances,
it’s all pretty exciting. People seem to know the band a little bit or
have heard the name. That’s a long way from where we started.”
“For me just staying involved working with creative people that you like
is a great motivating factor and its own reward,” says Rick. “It’s
a really good time. David Gillette, who plays Motion Price on ‘Nate on
Drums,’ did all of the artwork for the CD and our EP. The Tapes ‘n
Tapes guys are great friends of ours and recorded our first EP. We like working
and playing with all of the friends that we possibly can. There are certainly
a lot of weird and negative aspects about being associated with any sort of
arts or music kind of scene but there are also a lot of fun and positive aspects
to it and that’s what our band likes to focus on.” ||
Superdanger play two CD release shows for Fight, Fight, Fight on
Fri., Jan. 20 at the Triple Rock Social Club. 5 p.m. $7. All Ages. With Tapes
‘N Tapes, One for the Team and Squareshooters. And 10 p.m. $7. 21+. With
Tape ‘N Tapes and So it Goes. 629 Cedar Ave. S., Mpls. 612-333-7399.
For more information on Superdanger check out their official website at SuperDanger.com
or head on over to www.pulsetc.com to hear an mp3 of Superdanger’s song
“It’s Robert.”
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