Steam Powered Giraffe

Steam Powered Giraffe
From left to right: Zer0, The Spine, Rabbit, c. 2018
Background information
Origin	San Diego, California, United States
Genres	Folk rock pop vaudeville comedy steampunk[1]
Years active	2008–present
Members	David Michael Bennett Isabella Bunny Bennett Bryan Barbarin Chelsea Penyak Camille Penyak Lacey Johnson David Butterfield
Past members	Sam Luke Erin Burke Jon Sprague Michael Philip Reed Matthew Elton Smith Steve Negrete
Website	www.steampoweredgiraffe.com

Steam Powered Giraffe is an American musical project formed in San Diego, California in 2008, self-described as "a musical act that combines robot pantomime, puppetry, ballet, comedy, projections, and music".^[2][3] Created and led by twins David Michael Bennett and Isabella Bunny Bennett, the act combines music and improvisational comedy on-stage, with their studio works focusing primarily on music.^[4][5]

Steam Powered Giraffe (sometimes abbreviated as "SPG") has its own fictional mythology, in which the characters portrayed on-stage and on-record are a troupe of robot musicians constructed in the late 1890s. This fictional universe, influenced by the steampunk subculture, has been explored and expended in the band's albums and on-stage performance, on official web pages, and via comics primarily written and drawn by Isabella Bennett. The band has undergone several line-up changes, but its primary focus is on a core cast of robot characters portrayed via makeup and pantomime by the Bennett twins and a third performer (although the original line-up featured four robots), with several "humans" assisting with music, comedy, and dance throughout the act; additional robot and (fictional) "A.I." characters have variously been portrayed using puppetry, voice acting, and on-screen visuals.

Since its conception, the band has performed at venues including the San Diego Zoo, Legoland California, Downtown Disney, and numerous science fiction, fantasy, anime, and steampunk conventions. As of November 2024, the group has released six studio albums, three live albums, one DVD, and several live concert videos, webcomics, audio stories, and a themed card game. Their work has also been used in video games, with the group providing the soundtracks for the 2015 video game SteamWorld Heist and its 2024 sequel, as well as an official single for the 2016 video game Battleborn.