Push-Pull from left: Mike Notaro, Mike Hoggat and Mike Bridavsky. (Submitted photo for The Star)

The control room at Russian Recording studios in Nashville, Ind. (Submitted photo for The Star)

Bloomington band Push-Pull will take the stage at Locals Only Nov. 9 to debut its first (official) release, the short (but definitely sweet) "3."

A collection of six songs and a bonus track, the disc is stewing with energy, taut yet flexible, and fun while retaining a sort of polished-raw sound.

Composed of three "Mikes" as band members, Bridavsky (quoted here) and Notaro switch off on bass and guitar while Hoggatt plays drums. All three Mikes share songwriting and vocal duties.

The EP was recorded at Bridavsky's Russian Recording studios in Nashville, Ind., where he (and sometimes others) have recorded independent bands for four years.

How would you describe your sound?

All of us write songs, and we're a rock band. I think we just mainly try and amuse ourselves and write music that is fun for us to play and we think is interesting.

We try and sneak in things, like literally parts from different classic songs. It's kind of like a joke for us to throw in a Rolling Stones lyric. We're big fans of Twin Peaks, so we have a song on the new EP that's coming out that all the lyrics are from the second episode of Twin Peaks. No one would notice it but the bass line in one of the parts is from Twin Peaks.

We do stuff like that, but it's what most would say is a heavy rock band with short songs. Sometimes kind of mathy, kind of proggy.

Talk about your new EP, titled "3."

A while ago we recorded all of our new songs, there's like 13 or 14 of them ..... and half of them we weren't happy with the performance.

It turned out that the ones that came out really well all were kind of similar. They're really short and to the point. They work together pretty well as an EP.

There's six songs, and the six songs total just under 12 minutes, then there's a bonus track at the end of the CD, which is an all-a cappella rendering of a first song on the album that never got released (which was recorded prior to the EP). We recorded all the parts with our voices -- even guitar chords, I sang every note of the chord. It turned out really well so we decided to throw it on as a bonus track.

How did you record the songs?

The direction we want this record to go is just a documentation of how we are. There are no overdubs or anything, it's just exactly how we would sound live. ..... We just wanted this record to be really accurate.

Does recording other bands affect your music?

Making records for other bands lets you see how other bands work, and what they do that you can apply to your own band. Two of us are engineers and spend our lives doing sound and working with bands (Bridavsky and Notaro), so one thing that we work really hard on is being really prepared, really well-practiced.

The sound of our instruments is really specific and really dialed in and we know exactly how we like it. It makes it easy so that when we play shows our balance is pretty good, so usually our shows tend to sound really good.

(In being a recording engineer) you use your creativity but you're helping someone else. At the same time (recording others) can make it a little tough, like, what are we supposed to do? I think that's why "3" is really basic and straightforward.