When Ayad Al Adhamy, then-keyboardist of Passion Pit, caught wind of young Michigan electro-pop act Stepdad back in late 2011, he got in the car and drove from his ultra-hip neighborhood in Brooklyn to the decidedly less-glamorous town of Ypsilanti. Stepdad were performing at some venue a good 140 miles outside of their home base of Grand Rapids, but Al Adhamy and Ben Collins, co-owners of Black Bell Records, wanted to scout the band for a possible record deal. "It was a huge surprise, and it was pretty surreal," says ultramark, the band's frontman, who I inadvertently wake up with my phone call at 2 pm. "Usually people wait to see us in bigger cities, or SXSW."Since then, the kaleidoscopic neon-pop of Stepdad, which shares some sonic DNA with the Double-P, has unpredictably blown out of Grand Rapids. Ultramark and Ryan McCarthy started the project in Chicago in 2009, but shortly afterward returned to their home state and a town maybe best known for ska-punk band Mustard Plug. And they're not leaving anytime soon. "People still ask when we plan on moving to LA or New York, and we're not going to," says ultramark. "We decided for financial reasons that it was easier to start a project in Grand Rapids. With the Internet, there's no reason to be from anywhere. People can still listen to you online and find your band."
In June, Black Bell released Stepdad's debut album, Wildlife Pop. Produced by Chris Zane, it shows off ultramark's ultra-flamboyance, ultra-bravado, and ultra-penchant for adding lyrical depth to synthpop songs that blip and bloop and swirl and sway. Since relocating to Grand Rapids, they've hooked up with Warped Tour, gigged with Fitz & the Tantrums and (of course) Passion Pit, and even performed at a wedding.
There might be more wedding gigs on the way. "I'm not opposed to it," ultramark says. "The open bar helps people's perceptions of us."
MICHAEL MAROTTA » MICHAEL[a]PHX.COM :: @VMICHAELV
JUST ADDED:HEAR STEPDAD'S "PICK & CHOOSE" AND "JUNGLES" AT WFNX.COM.
Related:
New music for Boston's winter of discontent, Alex Chilton | Free Again: The ''1970'' Sessions, Guided by Voices | Let's Go Eat the Factory, More 
- New music for Boston's winter of discontent
Here are 10 record-release parties from both newcomers and veterans of our city, dropping new music from now until March's thaw.
- Alex Chilton | Free Again: The ''1970'' Sessions
Post–Box Tops and pre-Big Star, Alex Chilton was an 18-year-old Memphis boy on his way to his dual identity: former #1 pop hitmaker, perpetual underground hero.
- Guided by Voices | Let's Go Eat the Factory
The GBV name on Let's Go Eat the Factory' s label indicates two things to those fans: this is the first record to feature the "classic" Bee Thousand/Alien Lanes line-up since 1996, and this is the first Pollard album to deserve the GBV moniker since the break-up.
- Cardinal | Hymns
After a nearly two-decade silence, chamber-pop duo Cardinal emerge from their near-mythic hibernation with the sleepy-eyed, Beatles-underwater gem "Northern Soul," which crawls out of the speakers as if to say, "Yeah, we've been gone since 1994 — but really, don't mind us!"
- Cloud Nothings | Attack on Memory
With Attack on Memory , the third full-length from Cleveland-based Cloud Nothings, 20-year-old frontman Dylan Baldi approaches new, drastically darker material with the same empty-bottle angst that made his previous releases so appealing.
- You Me at Six | Sinners Never Sleep
Sinners Never Sleep is a transitional album, though such efforts rarely bode as well for the future as this does.
- Grimes | Visions
The debut record from Grimes, an alias of the Montreal-based Boucher, kicks off the peculiarity parade by presenting song titles steeped in cutesy affectation.
- Dr. Dog | Be the Void
With Be the Void , their sonically raw sixth album, these Philly psych-pop oddballs have pulled a fussy, self-conscious about-face, indulging in their weirdest ideas in years.
- The Asteroids Galaxy Tour | Out of Frequency
Getting a boost with songs from their 2009 debut, Fruit , featured in iPod and Heineken ads, and getting handpicked as concert openers by a then-still-functioning Amy Winehouse in their native Copenhagen, the Asteroids Galaxy Tour rode a lucky streak out of the gate.
- Metric | Synthetica
Of all the Canadian acts that stumbled onto the scene in the early aughts, Metric have been the most consistent in putting out quality material.
- Fawn | Coastlines
Jaded girl-boy harmonies, gleeful three-chord riffs, healthy doses of punkish noise and emo melody: Coastlines , the debut LP from Detroit indie-pop quartet Fawn, feels like a charming souvenir from a musical era two decades in the rear-view.
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