Relient K

Relient K

Relient K is a band, founded in 1998 in Canton, Ohio, although their first full-length album was released in 2000. Starting out, they possessed a distinctly punk-pop sound and have a penchant for quirky lyrics, puns, and, early on especially, pop culture references. These days their sound is a folk-alt-rock-punk-something blend. Current members are comprised of Matthew Thiessen (vocals, guitar, and piano), Matthew Hoopes (backing vocals, guitar), John Warne (more backing vocals, bass), Jon Schneck (guitar, banjo, bells, yet more backing vocals), and Ethan Luck (drums, and yes, even more backing vocals). They are a Christian Rock band, although not always explicitly so.

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Relient K provides examples of the following tropes:

• Adorkable: YMMV, but people generally agree that this applies to Matthew Thiessen.
• Age Progression Song: "Deathbed".
• Break Up Song: Most of "Forget and Not Slow Down" is this due to Matthew's fiance' leaving him while he was writing it.
• Cannot Spit It Out: "Come Right Out And Say It".
• Creator Breakdown: Matthew Thiessen's fiancee dumped him while he was writing Forgot and Not Slow Down, which led to what could possibly be called a positive Creator Breakdown- the album is probably the better for it.
• Digital Piracy Is Okay: They alluded to this trope in the Scene and Herd song:

Odds are that you probably
magically got this song for free (heh)
I'm not sure if it bothers me -
it seems fine!

• Epic Rocking: "Deathbed" is over 10 minutes long.
• Epic Song: "Deathbed"
• Everything's Better with Penguins: Shows up on the cover of Deck The Halls, Bruise Your Hands. Also, mysteriously, on the cover of a book they wrote.
• Filk Song: "I'm Lion-O"
• Hurricane of Puns: Frequently. It's practically part of their signature.
• I Have to Wash My Hair: "Mood Rings".

She liked you Wednesday, but now it's Friday, and she has to wash her hair.

• Incredibly Lame Pun: They really like these.
• Life Isn't Fair: Used the phrase, inverted the message in "Be My Escape".
• Long Title: They've had a couple, including "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care" and "The Only Thing Worse Than Beating A Dead Horse Is Betting On One." These usually also double as Non-Appearing Titles.
  • They're also usually the shortest songs on the album.
• Metal Scream: Had some epic ones on mmmhmmmm, most noticeable in the song Life After Death and Taxes. For this, they enlisted the help of the lead singer of Christian Death Metal band The Showdown.
• Mood Whiplash: While a few of their albums have this to varying degrees, The Nashville Tennis EP is especially notable for the incredibly depressing "There Was No Thief" and "Curl Up and Die" sandwiching the rather upbeat pseudo-Reggae "No Reaction".
  • Pretty much any time a song ends on a depressing/somber note, it is immediately followed by upbeat music.
• Motor Mouth: "The Only Thing Worse Than Beating a Dead Horse Is Betting On One" starts out this way.
• Non-Indicative Name: Some of the songs, and the band themselves. Would the title suggest to you that they are a Christian rock band?
  • It could be meant to invoke reliance on Jesus. In fact, that's technically what the song "K Car" is about... which would make the song a Stealth Pun.
• Odd Name Out: From "Bee Your Man":

Thank you very much from John, Matt, Jon, Matt, and Da- Ethan.

• One Steve Limit: "Bee Your Man" also illustrates this.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: "Nancy Drew", which is a song about the singer's love for Nancy Drew. Though one might assume it's more of an innocent crush in their case.
• Shave and a Haircut: When they played on "Conan" they ended the song "Must Have Done Something Right" with: "You better believe it... CO-NAN!" to the tune of "Shave and a Haircut".
• Singing Simlish: "Gibberish", which is comprised of mostly gibberish, outside of the chorus which basically says "don't talk to people in gibberish".
• Single-Stanza Song: "Crayons Can Melt On Us For All I Care". The full lyrics are: "I just wasted ten seconds of your life."
• Shotgun Wedding: "Deathbed".
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Covered the song that was the Trope Namer.
• Tsundere: The girl in "Mood Rings", possibly.
• Writing Around Trademarks: The band is named after their car, a Plymouth Reliant K, but the spelling had to be changed to avoid possible trademark issues.