With two members from NC State, Dr. Copter is a self-proclaimed progressive jam band made up of two parts traditional musical training and two parts silliness. 

The band even has a song about its bassist’s dog taking the group on his boat, keeping track of points it earns for a game that it created called yellow bat, blue ball. But even through the silliness, Dr. Copter is serious about its music, and each member has played his individual instrument for at least 12 years.

Aside from building up its fan base and recording an album, the band says its goal is to be rich enough to fly a helicopter to a gig, parachute out, have the helicopter crash (because the band can just buy a new one) and then glide on stage wearing a squirrel suit. 

The band is a trio made up of Taylor Rosenfeld, a vocalist and guitarist and a junior studying biomedical engineering; Patrick Spence, who plays drums and is a senior studying wood products; and Willis Tew, who plays bass and is in pilot school. 

Dr. Copter rose from the ashes of Spence and Rosenfeld’s previous band Galactic Zoo, which played together throughout the 2012-2013 school year. Galactic Zoo was a six-piece band, but lost three members over the summer. The group, which was comprised of Spence, Rosenfeld and John Blazer, picked up another bassist but lost him after a short amount of time. When Spence and Rosenfeld met Tew, the band became Dr. Copter. 

Dr. Copter played as a four-piece band until Blazer left unexpectedly. His abrupt departure ironically led to its song “Where’s Blazer?”

Two days after Tew joined, the band played a gig and was on for three hours.

“We didn’t know the material at all,” Rosenfeld said jokingly. “Yeah, we played ‘Get Lucky,’ like, six times.”

According to Rosenfeld though, the band was lucky because Tew and the trio shared common ground with their interest in jam bands. 

The name Dr. Copter stemmed from a brainstorming session the four had. According to Rosenfeld, the members got on a helicopter tangent because Tew flies helicopters, and Rosenfeld was thinking of rhyming words. 

“We tried to make a b.s. story to back it up,” Tew said. “Like, Taylor is going to be a doctor; I’m a pilot and then there’s Pat.”

The band’s members initially wrote songs individually and brought them to practices, but now it’s a more collaborative effort. 

“Sometimes we will all sit down and just jam and then we look at each other and say, ‘Holy crap, this is awesome.’ We stop, and then we do it again,” Tew said. 

Dr. Copter said it has not played many gigs with just the three of them because it wants to get tighter in its music so it can present something great. However, some interesting stories have resulted from the band’s few performances. 

“We’ve played frat parties before, but this was a very laid-back fraternity,” Tew said. “We set up on their porch; it was like their parents’ day, so we just jammed on their porch and the parents were cheering us on and drinking beers on the lawn.”

As for their goals, the members of Dr. Copter hope to record a studio album in the future. 

“Hopefully we will build up monetarily speaking to a point where we can afford to go into an actual studio and record a full, real, professional album,” Rosenfeld said. “But right now our main focus is playing live.”

The band has played at several venues, including The Pour House and Deep South the Bar in downtown Raleigh, The Keg on Hillsborough Street and the NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill dance marathons.

Rosenfeld, Tew and Spence said defining their genre is the “$6,000 question,” and that they do not want to define themselves solely as a jam band. 

“I would say we do more of an orchestrated jam; we all have pretty musical backgrounds and understand theory,” Tew said. “So it’s like we jam, but we also all are counting and paying attention to what key we are in and all transition together.”

Spence added that he would call it “organized improvisation,” meaning that they know when solos are going to happen, but in the solo the person can play whatever they would like. 

“If we are enjoying it, we kind of just look at each other and communicate,” Spence said. “But it’s funny sometimes because we will agree on different things and mess up.”

Spence recalled one night at a show in which Rosenfeld had his amp chords flip flopped and caused the power to go out in the whole venue, just as they were in the middle of a “big climactic jam.”

“I kept playing; it was just me jamming, and all my friends from State were there, so they were chanting my name,” Spence said. “We have a good time all the time.”

Dr. Copter will be at Local 506 in Chapel Hill on Dec. 4. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $7.