Ima Robot

Ima Robot is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in the late 1990s by Alex Ebert and Tim Anderson, who fused hip-hop-inspired beats and grungy, glam-tinged guitars into a restless, genre-blurring sound. After signing to Virgin Records, the lineup expanded with bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, drummer Joey Waronker, and keyboardist Oliver Goldstein, giving the band a tighter, more polished rock-electronic edge.

The band is best known for the manic energy of songs like «Greenback Boogie» and «Lovers In Captivity», as well as «Love Is A Boombox» and «Stick It To The Man», tracks that combined sharp hooks with a theatrical, slightly unhinged performance style. Despite industry pressure to chase radio-friendly hits, Ima Robot kept experimenting, quietly amassing a large catalog of unreleased material even as their public output slowed.

Alex Ebert later became widely known as the frontman of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, but Ima Robot remained a formative chapter in his career. After roughly fifteen years of relative silence, the band re-emerged in 2025 with the re-release of their album Another Man's Treasure, reintroducing their idiosyncratic blend of rock, electronic texture, and rap-inflected attitude to a new generation of listeners.