Recycled Percussion blending audience participation into industrial sound show

The four members of Recycled Percussion haven't put out a "Help Wanted" sign for years, which is understandable.

There are lots of drummers. But how many of them, Justin Spencer asks, "can jump off a ladder backwards and play drums on the way down?"

The ability to make sparks and rhythm with an electric sander is also a plus.

For now, Spencer and his three bandmates seek new hands only from the audience. Anyone who checks out the new show starting Monday at the MGM Grand's Studio 54 club will be issued a pair of sticks and an old muffler, hubcap or other junkyard treasure to bang on.

About 275 chairs are arranged on two floors of the club for Recycled Percussion's ticketed shows before the dance crowd rolls in.

"What a good environment for a band that's industrial. It's like the room was built for us," Spencer says.

A nightclub setting? An interactive element? Looks like the break dancing Jabbawockeez aren't the only new blood on the Strip hoping to sell show tickets to the club demo.

Recycled Percussion drummed up national exposure to its "junk rock" last season on "America's Got Talent." But that came after 10 years on the college circuit, doing about 250 shows per year.

"You've got to think about where those people are now," Spencer says. "Those are all people in their 20s and early 30s who have seen us perform at some point." After taking the tour bus to campus for so many years, "We've been everywhere, and we're finally where we think we belong."

The troupe already knows the Strip from the live version of "Talent" last year at the Planet Hollywood Resort. It was a contractual obligation the four are happy to have behind them, even if their role in the revue grew over the course of the 10-week run.

"It was a weird variety show. It didn't have any oomph to it," says Spencer, who promises "ours is full-throttle the entire time."

Recycled Percussion has a primal drum soulmate in the Blue Man Group and shares the same junkyard-punk visual aesthetic of the bygone "Stomp Out Loud." But Spencer says that when he first assembled a drum circle for a 1995 high school talent show in New Hampshire, "I got the influence from the New York city subways."

The troupe has since evolved into more of a band, its shows more like rock concerts than theater. Spencer and Ryan Veniza handle most of the drumming, while guitarist Jim Magoon and DJ Todd Griffin shape the rhythm into tunes. The grand finale compresses a 70-song history of rock into a 12-minute musical collage.

(Any smart aleck who yells for "Freebird" better be prepared to hear it.)

In this economy, Spencer also figures it can't hurt to take the opposite path of "Stomp," an off-Broadway show that pumped up its cast and budget for the ill-fated "Stomp Out Loud" on the Strip.

"We're nobody in Vegas, and we have to really earn that," he says. "It seemed more reasonable to put a smaller show in a smaller environment instead of coming to Vegas with guns a-blazin' in a 1,500-seat venue and thinking you're going to fill it every night."

The group has a huge Internet following, but still may face the "Stomp" challenge of convincing impulse buyers Recycled Percussion isn't just 90 minutes of hammering headache.

"If you were listening from the outside, there are times you'd think it was an Aerosmith concert and times you'd think it was a comedy act," says drummer Veniza. "There's a lot of different dynamics to it."

Plus, you get to play along. If you have practiced enough on Rock Band to be awesome, start warming up.

But truth be told, "we look forward to people who aren't awesome," Spencer says. "We have a lot more fun with them."

Contact reporter Mike Weatherford at mweatherford@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0288.