There are a lot of chain coffeeshops out there. As I waited at one in the Uptown/Isles area of Minneapolis to interview The Battle Royale, the minutes passed and I worried that I had possibly gotten my days mixed up. But it turned out they were at an entirely different shop in a different neighborhood. Finally, keyboardist Sam Robertson walked in and having not met in person before, our eyes met in that cautious Are you? sort of way. I let him do a couple loops around the store before I made another "over here" hand wave and then the rest of them arrived, slightly exasperated and apologetic.

They were a music magazine example of how indie kids are supposed to look—perfectly mussed hair, haphazard-on-purpose clothes, but without the pretentious indulgence. I was mildly surprised to have their demeanor border somewhere between very friendly and open to what might have been an air of being a little uncomfortable. I fear that this might have had something to do with where I had positioned myself. When I arrived, the place was busy with people so I had no choice but to settle myself into the only slightly secluded area where we could talk—a corner of the room that featured an extremely high-backed throne of a chair that I reluctantly positioned myself into while I had waited for them to arrive. But I find it hard to believe that my perch might have been intimidating; at least I hope that wasn’t the case.

After the usual interview stats, we dug into where it all started. What is most compelling about The Battle Royale is how long they have been playing and, of course, how young they are (Robertson and guitarist Mark Ritsema are 18, while Grace Fiddler and John Pelant are 19). They got their start by submitting a small handful of early songs to Radio K for 2005’s Battle of the Underage Underground while they were still just learning (and still are, one might say) by playing poppy folk music together in the church basement and their homes. What wrapped up their chapter one? A subsequent first place win and a one-album deal with Afternoon Records, which became their first outing, Sparkle Dust Fantasy.

How good they were even then and have become can be slightly obscured by the higher local profile of two of their members' other bands: Grace Fiddler’s bass playing and vocal contribution in One for the Team and Mark Ritsema’s guitar in Mouthful of Bees, all in the Afternoon Records family. And there is also the matter of distance. Milwaukee houses college freshmen Sam Robertson and John Pelant, and Minneapolis’ U of M hosts Fiddler and Ritsema, who do more than pass the time with their other projects while John and Sam are off in America’s Dairyland.

But despite their other projects and geographical barriers, The Battle Royale is more than just a one-off thing. “I wouldn’t say it was a pastime, because I definitely take it seriously,” says Fiddler. “But at the same time, it also is just what I do—I do it because I like it. I guess that makes it a hobby.”

When I asked them to explain the title of their first album, it elicited giggly laughter as we sat in our circle of ornate chairs. While it seemed to be mostly a random juxtaposition of words, Pelant recollected the origins how they named Wake Up, Thunderbabe.

“You know how they do the forecast for tomorrow on the news and they do certain areas? Well there’s this place called Thunder Bay, and it was like, 'Wake up, Thunder Bay. Seventy-nine degrees tomorrow, sunshine. There’ll be a little bit of hail in there somewhere.' And I was like, what did you just say? And as Sam read it, I heard him say 'thunder babe.' And I was like, 'did you just say, thunder…babe?' And he was like, 'no—but that’s cool!' And so it’s Wake Up, Thunderbabe. I think it’s cool.”

It also lends itself to the aforementioned dual nature of the album itself, explains Fiddler. “It’s like the CD is an A Side/B Side sort of thing,” she says, “With a comma in between. So Wake Up goes with one, and Thunderbabe goes with the other.”

In the time between albums, their sound has really grown. The side B that Grace talks about is not unlike the poppy folk that surely grew out those earlier basement days. In an effort to mix their indie-electro tracks with the lushly acoustic ones, it proved difficult to get an effective flow. And even though you can’t have a real second “side” on a compact disc, the personalities of the two separate sounds ring clear enough to leave you with that feeling that you have flipped over a freshly pressed record album.

I visited with The Battle Royale while they were all together over their holiday break. While home they play shows, go on small tours and plan for future outings. But for now, they’ll spend time apart again for the rest of the school year, returning to the balance that is the life of pre-twenties musicians. Classes, grades, work, growing up—it appears that the spring breaks or summer vacations of their bright future will be the perfect time to see what happens next. The suspense is already killing me.

Listen to "Scream, Scream" off Wake Up, Thunderbabe

The Battle Royale MySpace page

Afternoon Records website