Mutemath

Mutemath
Left to right: Gummerman, Meany, Mitchell-Cárdenas, and King in 2011
Background information
Origin	New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Genres	Alternative rock indie rock electronica psychedelic soul post-rock
Years active	2002–present
Labels	Word Teleprompt Warner Bros. Megaphon Germany Wojtek Records
Associated acts	Twenty One Pilots Earthsuit Macrosick Club of the Sons Jeremy Larson Slow Hands Plastic Planets The Pink Dust
Website	mutemath.com
Members	Paul Meany Darren King Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas Todd Gummerman
Past members	Greg Hill

Mutemath (sometimes styled as MuteMath or MUTEMATH) is an American alternative rock band from New Orleans that formed in 2003. The group consists of lead vocalist and keyboardist Paul Meany, drummer Darren King, guitarist Todd Gummerman, and bassist Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas, but they often perform on any mixture or variation of these instruments. They draw heavily from influences in 1960s and 1970s soul, psychedelic rock, and jam band styles, utilizing vintage guitars and amplifiers, as well as Rhodes keyboards, synthesizers, and other electronic instruments such as the keytar.

Mutemath started in 2002 as a long distance collaboration between Paul Meany in New Orleans, Louisiana and Darren King in Springfield, Missouri. The two had known each other from their work together in Meany's previous band Earthsuit. Occasionally Paul would receive instrumental demo CDs from Darren. Fairly impressed with his efforts, Paul contacted Darren and asked if he could mess with the demos a bit, adding some ideas of his own. Darren obliged and the two would set in motion a sort of songwriting ping-pong match that would carry on for several months.

In February 2002, Darren moved to New Orleans to work closer with Paul in hopes to at least turn their efforts into some kind of side-project. Calling it "Math", the two explored many of their shared influences ranging from DJ Shadow to Bjork, yielding a lot of their earlier works to be more sample based electronica. After Meany's band officially broke up by that summer, Darren and Paul moved in together into a house they found in Mandeville, Louisiana where they spent all their time writing new songs and considering how to turn their side-project into a full band.

By 2003, they had recruited guitarist Greg Hill, another Springfield, MO native and longtime friend of Darren's. All now living in Southern Louisiana, the three worked on expanding their collection of songs while broadening the sound to a more rock infused hybrid. With the addition of more of their collective band influences like The Police and U2 the music began to find a sound of its own. Paul took the early demos to friend and producer Tedd T, who fell in love at first listen. The trio continued to work on demos with Tedd for a possible EP while playing shows on the side with different bass players experimenting with the idea of eventually becoming a four-piece.