Spotlight: What Made Milwaukee Famous

"We don't just rock out for the sake of it. That's kind of pointless," laughs Michael Kingcaid. "There's a lot to encompass out there, and we'd like to try it all. There's no formula for rock & roll."

Kingcaid holds the golden pipes to Austin indie rock fourpiece What Made Milwaukee Famous. Despite their sudsy name, Kingcaid, guitarist/keyboardist Drew Patrizi, bassist John Farmer, and new drummer Jeremy Bruch play a sobering blend of rock and pop, both innocent and energetic. They dash through timeless beats and methods, dragging hoards of locals along with them.

"It doesn't matter how much you vary from whatever your core sound is," jazz lover Bruch posits, "as long as you play it and mean it."

And they do. Not only has that heartfelt sentiment produced an outstanding album in 2004's Trying to Never Catch Up, it earned the foursome a spot on Austin City Limits, put them on the roster of George Couri and Charles Attal's Fourth Floor Management, and garnered serious attention from indie pop stalwarts Barsuk Records. If all goes well, this is going to be a huge year for WMMF.

"Hopefully we're merging into where the great music that comes out of the independent world will take the forefront in society," an optimistic Kingcaid says. "That's the biggest dichotomy of the world today. For a long time, bands like Spoon and other indie bands were underground, and now they're breaking out."

On the verge of a national breakthrough, the four knights of music sanctity take to the streets in a ploy of good, honest music. We're gonna miss them, but Kingcaid is ready to move on to the next level.

"It's a big, open world out there, and we all have the ability and the desire to explore it."