NME Radar Piece: The Strange Boys

Being Rolling Stones ‘new favourite band’ is not furnishing The Strange Boys with riches just yet as NME catches up with guitar slinging vocalist Ryan Sambol skiving from his dishwashing day job in an Austin restaurant. Sambol founded the band as a two-piece at the tender age of 16 with drummer Matt Hammer who made the cut simply by being “the only other guy who skated in school”. Initially playing “stuff that sounded a bit like the White Stripes covering The Jesus and Mary Chain” the addition of Sambol’s brother Philip on bass and Greg Enlow on guitar in 2005 saw the band begin to dizzyingly twist and turn the tired garage-rock template on it’s ass setting them apart from a sea of also-rans. Sambol happily admits to being entranced not by the usual garage diet of Nuggets box sets but by Link Wray and early Stax and Sun Records releases. On a slew of self released CDR’s sold at shows sharing stages with everyone from Total Abuse to Reigning Sound they have honed their craft and a forthcoming debut LP on In The Red feature the lean, spiraling guitar lines and machete-sharp vocals that tracks like “Woe Is You And Me” have been threatening for so long. Who needs to be another 13th Floor Elevators rip-off outfit when you’ve opened for Rocky Erikson and had a nod of approval from the mad old granddad of psyche-garage himself?