A wild garage-punk band from Louisville, Kentucky, the Archaeas play fast, loud, raucous rock & roll songs dealing with (in their words) "tension, anxiety, ominous energy, and the release that comes from vanquishing those mental foes." Their sound is informed by no-frills hard rock, old-school punk, and more contemporary garage-punk acts, brought to life by the hard-driving guitar work and throaty vocals of Violet Archaea. After starting out as a one-woman project on the 2016 EP Archaea, they expanded into a trio and made a big sound on their first LP, 2020's Archaeas.

The Archaeas were founded by guitarist, singer, and songwriter Violet Archaea. Violet's two key influences were Mark Sultan, the Canadian blues-punk musician who performed one-man-band style as BBQ, and the Japanese garage-punk trio Guitar Wolf. In particular, Violet was impressed by Wild Zero, a raucous sci-fi film starring the band in which they save the world from invading aliens with the help of a passionate rock & roll fan and his transgendered girlfriend. As a trans woman, the film and its non-judgmental outlook resonated especially well with Violet, and some of her first Archaeas performances found her handling guitar, drums, and vocals while the movie was shown on a screen behind her. Describing the Archaeas as a "one witch band," she released a five-song EP in September 2016, titled Archaea. In time, Violet expanded the Archaeas into a trio with the addition of Chyppe Archaea-Crosby on bass and Chase Archaea on drums. Their frantic, no-holds-barred shows earned them a reputation in Louisville and on the garage punk scene nationwide, and the Florida-based Total Punk label issued a single on the band, "Rock N Roll" b/w "Replica," in February 2020. Goner Records from Memphis stepped in to help the group put out their first album, Archaeas, which became available in September 2020.

Biography by Mark Deming Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.