It’s been two years since Injury Reserve rolled out of Phoenix with “Live From the Dentist Office,” named in honor of the fact that the tracks had been recorded in an actual dentist office when producer Parker Corey’s grandpa was done seeing patients.

Anthony Fantano – “the internet’s busiest music nerd,” as he’s been known to call himself – hyped the album on the Needle Drop as “a really cool modern spin on an old classic” and “one of the most impressive hip-hop debuts I've heard.”

And the trio – which also features MCs Ritchie With a T and Stepa J Groggs – delivered on that promise, producing a string of increasingly impressive music videos, directed by Corey, and an even better second album titled “Floss,” another reference to their base of operations.

Five of their videos have earned more than 100,000 views on YouTube, with last year’s “Oh S—t!!!” closing in on half a million.

Earlier this year, the trio moved to California, where they cut an EP all but guaranteed to build on that momentum. “Drive it Like it’s Stolen” has already spawned three killer videos, “North Pole,” “See You Sweat” and "Boom."

Pigeons & Planes summed it up as "the best project yet" from "one of the most exciting rising acts in rap."

Now, they’re hitting the road with the Underachievers while President Gator Records has made all three Injury Reserve releases available at Hello Merch on colored vinyl.

Corey, Ritchie and Groggs checked in to talk about the new EP, Phoenix hip-hop and more. Here’s what they had to say.

Question: "North Pole," the new EP's first single, is named in honor of your new home. When did you guys move and why?

Corey: We just moved here in March, though we had been planning to for a while just because we started to hit that ceiling in Phoenix where the people that we needed to be talking to, the people we needed to set up meetings with, the industry, it just was not in Phoenix. And we were starting to maneuver our way through that so we had to be here.

Q: Have you noticed a change in how you’re seen or how things have been going since you moved?

Ritchie: I think it’s simple things really. It got to the point where we were having meetings and we would have to drive six hours, you know? But we’re not super-duper collaborative people on the music side. So it’s not like we finally were getting to work with all these people that we’ve really been wanting to work with.

Personally, I feel the biggest change that really affected Injury Reserve and the EP was us being so isolated from almost anything. Because we don’t live in the city. We live in Altadena, which is basically Pasadena. So we’re kind of separated from everything else, which is kind of interesting because we really don’t do anything or go anywhere. And it reflected highly on the tone of the record.

Q: You were able to build a really solid grass-roots following while living here. How do you feel you were able to do that?

Corey: I think that was our manager’s vision. He kind of came to us when we didn’t really have any following whatsoever and he started booking us these house shows that we didn’t know existed on the ASU punk underground. I feel like that’s where we developed our core following, then built up to a point where we could drop a video and it would do well online.

Groggs: As far as the internet goes, Anthony Fantano definitely helped big time get our name out there. And word of mouth. I feel like Injury Reserve has definitely grown in the last couple of years through videos. I definitely think we get a lot of recognition for how well the videos are shot.

Q: Was there a particular aspect of the internet you targeted, like, this is gonna be our avenue?

Ritchie: We targeted YouTube specifically in the sense of making videos and Parker being so good and already having experience in making videos.

Q: When Complex ran a feature on you back in June, they ran it with the headline "Injury Reserve are the latest weirdo internet rappers – but they’re actually good." How did you guys feel about that headline?

Ritchie: Our fans were really offended by it. And at that point I already kind of knew Complex’s whole situation. I feel like they felt that was the way to get people to even click on the article, if you want me to be honest.

I think the corniest thing about it is like Parker says, weird is such a corny overused adjective that really doesn’t say anything – like, “Oh yeah, my music is kind of weird. It’s kind of different.” That’s probably the most insulting thing, that it sounded like that was the only thing they could think of to describe us.

But I honestly didn’t take offense at all. I think they were just trying to say that we’re different, like we don’t really fit the mold of what’s coming out right now. Our fans were pissed! And I was like, “I appreciate you guys sticking up for us,” but when you read the article, it’s a very respectful article.

Q: What do you think it is about your music that you’ve managed to inspire the kind of devotion that leads to fans defending you against the word choice in a headline?

Corey: All the stuff that we’ve put out we’ve given it 110 percent and I think that people see that. They see the ambition. And they bond with that really hard because they feel like they’re buying into a movement.

Ritchie: Even when we had no fans, we were still trying to make the best video ever. And we weren’t trying to cut corners. I do think there’s a little bit of an underdog aspect to it. People like rooting for the underdog.

There’s something about Phoenix and not having someone come out of Phoenix on a rap level that had some kind of artistic integrity in the rap lane. Not to be disrespectful. I also think – and it’s weird to talk about yourself – there’s something special about, like, what we talk about and how we’re not kind of doing the cliché rap bulletins.

But I also think, at the end of the day, with all those answers, it has everything to do with just the music and people being like, “Why the f--k are we the only ones who listen to this music?! Why isn’t this bigger?” There’s that kind of hearing something and thinking, “Wouldn’t the whole world like this?”

I don’t think there’s some weird narrative thing. Because there hasn’t really been a big Injury Reserve narrative, other than the fact that we were making music out of Parker’s grandpa’s dentist office. It’s always been whatever we’ve released.

We haven’t really done much more than that. The only time we ever really talked and people listened was that damn Phoenix New Times article (Headline: Injury Reserve Calls Itself the 'Only Good Rap Act in Arizona'), which got blown out of proportion.

But if you think about it, that’s the only time we’ve really had anything to say, other than in our music, you know? It hasn’t been some weird narrative. It’s always been like we’ve released s--t and when we release it, we take it seriously.

Q: When you say the New Times article blew things out of proportion, what do you think the point you were trying to get across was?

Corey: What they used in the headline was in, like, a side comment. (laughs)

Ritchie: If you read the article, it’s all there. If you actually read the article? Then you hear what we were saying. And the thing is, we’ve never really pointed fingers and said, “Oh you know, they kind of put words in our mouth and blew what we said out of proportion,” even though that is what happened.

But we thought that people would at least read the article. What we even said, though? The reality of the situation is that what we said, in the beginning of 2015, it was basically factually correct. There really wasn’t people that were putting out the quality of content that we were in the hip-hop lane. It just wasn’t happening.

And it’s crazy because all the people that we did know that were making rap music? ‘Cause there were local rappers on our projects. All the people that we did know that were making rap music that were confident in themselves, they weren’t upset. It was all these other people we had never heard of.

All these people that really genuinely weren’t putting in the work that we were putting in that were kind of like, “Who do these guys think they are?” And I get that. I’m not saying what we said was perfect. But if you actually read it, you really see what we were trying to say.

Q: It was a juicy headline.

Ritchie: And it worked.

Things To Do app: Get the best in events, dining and travel right on your device

Q: You mentioned earlier playing the local punk underground house shows coming up. Do you feel like that had an impact on the type of music you were making?

Corey: I don’t think 'Floss' as an album sounds super punk-rappy. But there are definitely certain songs or certain moments of songs where it’s something that was made with playing those kinds of shows in mind, I think.

Ritchie: The most obvious thing that was affected by it was our live show. But I think he’s completely right. It wasn’t some big switch that flipped and we turned into some punk-rap combination. It’s just a certain type of attitude. The reality is, though, that punk and rap are the same attitude.

Hip-hop came up on the same attitude of standing up for yourself. It’s the same message. That’s why it made sense. And that’s why when there are black punkers, it’s almost like those are the most punk people you could meet.

It’s almost why when bands like G.L.O.S.S. come out, they actually felt punk because they had something to talk about, to rebel against. Not to be disrespectful, but it’s like what more did people feel like they wanted to hear straight white guys scream about? Like, what were they upset about? What was oppressing them?

When G.L.O.S.S. came out, that was interesting because they were talking about trans issues. That’s why rap has surpassed punk and rock in general on a mainstream level. Because it’s actually a narrative that is still going on. But that’s not even the question you asked, so….

Q: That’s all right. It was interesting. How do you feel your music has evolved from "Live From the Dentist Office" through "Floss" to "Drive It Like It’s Stolen?"

Parker: I feel like "Live From the Dentist Office" was the very jazzy one. But then, from there, I feel like "Floss" got bigger and louder and more bombastic. And then this new EP, we’ve taken that and gotten a lot more focused and precise with it.

Q: The EP sounds great, by the way. You recorded this one in L.A., not the dentist office, right?

Ritchie: That’s why we didn’t continue the dentist narrative, because it was over, basically. It would’ve kind of just been like a gimmick at that point if we continued it because that was the whole thing that was cool about it, was that it was so simple, "Live From the Dentist Office" and "Floss." That’s what it was.

It wasn’t some weird fake s--t or something that we decided to go with. So since we left, we weren’t gonna continue it. And then, the new place is called the North Pole so that’s why that song is called that.

Q: You guys had a guest spot from Vic Mensa on the last one. How did you hook up with him?

Groggs: There’s not really too much of a story to tell. Our manager works for Vic and he kind of made that happen. I think it was a great song for Vic to be on, especially dealing with topics that he was talking about on his album and what he had going on. So it was cool. Our manager, Nick, hooked us up with that.

Q: He sounds great on it.

Ritchie: Yeah, ‘cause he’s great. Much prior to that, we started building a relationship with them, just because Nick was working him and us and he was working on his album and our album at the same time. So it kind of just made a lot of sense. It kind of just happened organically. And it was cool. He really liked it.

And I think Groggs’ point of it being in that realm of what he was talking about on his album, it was a lot easier for him to just come over and do his thing and then go right back to working on his record. It was cool that it was genuine and didn’t feel like a favor. Because he did become a big fan after Nick started working with him. He got into us.

He was really into "Live From the Dentist Office" and when we released “Oh S--t!!!” and “All This Money,” he went on tour and when he came to Phoenix, he brought us out on stage during his set.

Q: Are there artists out there that if you were going out on tour with someone, this would be the act? Is there a scene that you feel part of?

Corey: I feel like we’re some of the most in-between-the-scene people out there. I feel like it’s weird that we can share a lot of fans with, like, Milo and Open Mike Eagle but then also do a No Jumper. We’re kind of in the middle of all the scenes and bounce around between their worlds.

Ritchie: I completely agree, but I think that’s something that’s always been with us. Before we even entered that punk scene, when we were trying to do the rap shows, we were a little too different than rap people, but then when we started doing the punk shows, we were a little too rap for the punk shows.

So what we did was we kept doing us. We didn’t acclimate to any type of scene and it’s allowed us to be kind of our own thing. It’s allowed us to co-exist in different scenes on the internet, like Parker was talking about. And personally, I’m not really into the whole “If you listen to this person, then you’d like this person.”

Blogs do that a lot and it’s really corny. Because it really boxes artists in. And we’ve found ourselves in this past year being compared to people that if you do your Google, we arguably created them in a sense. It kind of gets disrespectful, because we’ve seen people compare us to things where it’s like, “If you go to YouTube, we predate that.”

But I do think there’s something special about us not fitting with everything. There are some acts that want to be familiar and there’s something special about familiarity. It allows you to get fans easy. But we’re not like those artists and that’s not really our goal. Our goal is to be our own thing and push the genre forward.

So it’s kinda cool being in between the scenes. That’s something that can benefit us in the long run. You can have a show and you can see the different demographics in the venue and see the different types of people that we bring together. It’s not just one scene and other people feel left out, you know?

Q: So you have this EP coming out. What are your other plans through the end of the year?

Corey: Well, we just announced that we’re going on tour starting Oct. 6 with the Underachievers. We’re going all through the U.S. and ending at the Goldrush Festival here in Phoenix on the 19th of November.

Ritchie: Yeah, I mean, we’re releasing it and getting on the road a week after, introducing it to a bunch of people that came out to see us and just as many people that have no idea who we are. It’s really cool to be able to get on the road right after we release a record.

We’ll still probably release another music video. But getting on the road and trying to do things that we haven’t done to try and push our horizons, that’s our biggest thing with this record is we want this to be a record where we gain a lot of new fans and not just feed the same people that have been listening to us the last couple years.

So going on tour right after, it’s a really cool opportunity to feed our fans but also gain a lot of new fans.

MORE MUSIC NEWS:

Fall concert guide

Phoenix local music news

Phoenix concert news, updates

Phoenix local music picks