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The emphasis on message in addition to medium is easy to
understand cuming from a frontman who says that had he not
become a musician, he'd still be playing with words.
"I like books. I'd love to be a professional writer no music,
just words. I'm working on it on the side." Barring that?
"Maybe a clown?" he says. 'Or a dog walker." _
The Strange Boys have fans in other hip, literate, musical
types, including fellow Austinite Tames Eno of Spoon, who
produced Live Music. But in spite of the growing interest in
his band and breathless praise from the like of Rough Trade
Records ("The Strange Boys have provoked excitement and
reaction in the Rough Trade offices the likes of which has been
unseen since the signing of The Strokes"), Sambol remains
humble in both his assessment of the band
and in his ambitions. When asked to com
pare The Strange Boys with Eno's Spoon,
he replies simply, "They worked hard to get
where they are today. Maybe that's the big
gest similarity: hard work."
And if Sambol hopes to gamer the same
acclaim and popularity as bands like Spoon
or The Strokes, he's keeping it under wraps.
"Well, we'll have to see," he says of The -
^ Strange Boys' future. "We're not worried
about it It's a pretty slim chance [that
well become a household name]. We're just
. happy to make records. We're not really
looking.for the cover of magazines."
. Sambol's persona reflects this senti
ment. Though concise and plainspoken in
conversation and seemingly uninterested
in celebrity, he plays and sings with gusto
both on recordings and in his live perfor
mances. He leaves the lasting impression of
a man dedicated to his craft and relatively
uninterested in most of the trappings that
come along with it. And whether you're talking about a writer,
a musician or an artist of any kind, it's tough to find a quality
more authentic than that.
Avtfa&fac' is a word
folks seem to like to use when talking
about Austin-based Americana act The |
Strange Boys. It's an apt choice, but an
odd one, considering it implies that there
is some gold-standard predecessor to
evaluate them by. In fact, one of the most
compelling things about The Strange Boys
is their weaving together of genres, run
ning the gamut from R&B to country. In
the process, they create a marriage of
garage rock, rockabilly and vintage country
that, while it isn't a bona fide specimen
of any particular genre, winds up sounding
like an awfully authentic artistic expres
sion, bom of the members' melange of
influences.
"Those arc our favorite kinds, qf musk •
to listen to, so naturally they just come £ f
together when we play and write," explains
frontman Ryan Sambol. "They go pretty 3
well together; all of them have souL"
Soul, then, is no small part of what makes The Strange Boys
appealing, owing to their soulful interpretations of ctassk
American musical styles and Sambol's heartfelt lyrics. Infused
with quiet musing, even when they sound like roltkking sound
tracks to nights at the pool hall, Sambol's tunes explore such
themes as why it might make him happy to hear his friends
having sex in the next room ("My friends are having sex in the
other room/ Being quiet as they can so as not to be rude/1
smite and fall asleep on the couch so easily/ 'Cause they love
each other, and for some reason that pleases me") or mulling
over the inescapabiljly of the present in a number of ways on
The Strange Boys' latest release, Live Music ("live," in this case,
rhyming with "give," not "jive).
Rachel Bailey
MAY 23,2012-FlAGPOLE.COM 13
ALAU5
IN THE COURTYARD