Five Guys walk into a Radiohead problem

Musicians kick ideas around. Most of them die in the parking lot.

A few years back, Taylor Stoma, Michael Williams and Cohen Hartman kicked around one that didn't: start a band that plays nothing but Radiohead.

It was an ambitious thing to say out loud. Few bands have loomed larger over modern rock. Since coming out of Britain in the 1990s, Radiohead has kept moving its music forward—guitars, electronics, rhythms that don't sit where you expect, songs that hang in the air after they end.

That's the appeal. That's also the problem.

The music is intricate enough to test some of Baton Rouge's best players. Odd instruments have to be learned, occasionally for a handful of precisely timed seconds. And Radiohead fans know the records cold.

They decided to try it anyway. Liam Catchings and Matt Johnson signed on.

Then came the part every band gets stuck on—a name.

"In Rainbros" was floated. So was "Kid AF." Both got laughs. Both got killed. Eventually they landed on OK Imposter—a clever nod to OK Computer, Radiohead's breakout album.

They started practicing about a year ago, said Catchings, a videographer at LSU by day. Every one of them has a Radiohead conversion story.

Catchings' started with the video for "Pyramid Song." He bought OK Computer and wore it out on repeat during an exchange program in Germany, particularly the opening of "Paranoid Android" cutting through the fog.

This is it, he remembered thinking.

When OK Imposter played its local debut at Chelsea's Live, nearly 300 people came out—and they listened. 

It worked well enough that the five bandmates are practicing harder and booking shows along the Gulf Coast this fall. Another Baton Rouge date is the hope.

They set out to play Radiohead. They wound up with a crowd of their own.