North Texas Daily

The sound of drums and guitar can be heard from the front porch of a student apartment in Denton.

Inside, five musicians are practicing in a bedroom-turned-practice room — the bed shoved in a corner, soundproofing foam adhered to the walls and speakers and equipment crammed into the small space. They pause their rehearsal and come into the living room, decorated with colored Christmas lights, a disco ball and posters featuring the Sex Pistols and David Bowie’s “Labyrinth,” and sprawl out onto a couch and beanbag chairs.

“We are Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique,” said Luke Flaspohler, lead singer of the band and media arts sophomore.

In the film “Kill Bill: Volume 2,” the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique is a fighting technique consisting of a series of powerful jabs from the fingertips into five different pressure points on the victim’s body. After the victim takes five steps, their heart explodes inside their body, killing them instantly. The Denton-based punk band of the same name aims to explode not hearts, but eardrums, with their music.

The band is made up of Flaspohler, Brendan Flanagan, drummer and media arts junior, Dylan Conley, guitarist and psychology sophomore, Luca Buongiorno Nardelli, violinist and music and physics sophomore and bassist Ziggy Jackson, who attends Richland College.

Members of the band had played together in the past, but the current lineup came together during the fall 2021 semester, thanks to a class of 2025 group chat on an app called LoopChat. The same semester, the band started playing shows in house venues around Denton, such as West OAK House, a DIY studio space located inside a house at an undisclosed location.

Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique
Band practices in a living room on Nov. 21, 2022. Photo by Marco Barrera

Since then, they have continued to play around the area, including a performance on the Union rooftop, and are playing one show per week.

Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique calls themselves an alternative-punk band but has explored other sounds in the past. They have drawn inspiration from folkpunk, cowpunk and indiepunk, as well as bands like AJJ, The Dead Milkmen and Prince Daddy and the Hyena.

On Nov. 4, the band released their first single, “Chaos Zwiehandler +5,” on Spotify and plans to record and release an EP with a producer over the next few months.

“We are going to record a song and release it, and if we like [the producer], we’ll keep going,” Flaspohler said. “It’s our first time recording in a studio — we’re a little nervous and we just want to take it slow.” 

Currently, the band is using the money they earn from playing shows to record their music. On average, they make around $100 from each performance. 

“Hopefully we can [do the recording] in December and get some Christmas money and spend it on that EP because it is going to be pricey,” Flaspohler said. “We’re also going to be playing a lot of shows coming up, so hopefully that money can help us pay for it.”

The EP will include a re-recording of their already released single, which was recorded on Nov. 25, and four additional songs.

The band’s intention of releasing songs on streaming platforms is not to make money through streams, but to allow people to listen to their music outside of live shows and to be able to learn the lyrics and sing along.

“That’s the one thing you need when starting a band — to have music out so people can listen to it whenever they want,” Flanagan said. 

The band said they have seen growth in their fanbase and a lot of support from other musicians in Denton. University sophomore and German major Lily Stone created a poster for the band to display at their shows that reads “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, your local fire hazard,” and has the band’s social media handle along with a drawing of a rocket ship. People have signed the poster at each of the shows, and it is now full of signatures and doodles from fans and other local bands.

“This thing is going to be in a museum one day,” Conley said.

In the future, the band hopes to go on tour and perform full-time. For now, the five college students and musicians are focusing on their education while growing Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique to its full potential.

Featured Image: Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique Band sits in a living room on Nov. 21, 2022. Photo by Marco Barrera

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct misspellings.