Complete with shaggy locks, three-part harmonies and uber-pop guitar hooks, Rooney is being packaged as a band straight out of the '60s.
And that's almost OK for these five L.A. natives.
"We made the record in a modern studio and tried to make it appeal to modern people," drummer/singer Ned Brower said. "But we also relate to older music more than modern radio rock."
The retro appeal was not a derisive plan for insta-success. Brower insists that the band's de-evolution comes from a very natural place - it's what the band listens to, it's what the band makes.
Brower sites the band's major influences as being the Zombies, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Motown girl groups and Abba among others. No vinyl for these boys though, Rooney's members carry iPods for travel purposes - talk about your modern twist.
Similarly, the band's Web site at www.rooney-band.com compares the sound on Rooney's self-titled album to rock/pop greats like the Cars, the Beatles, Blur, the Strokes and Weezer. Still, Rooney's sound is not derivative.
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Layering unexpected rhythms and dark lyrics over typical guitar and vocal tambours and shooting the mix through with killer hooks, Rooney will make you sing the strangest things.
"I'm a terrible person," Robert Carmine, the album's primary songwriter, sings in a sweet little melody on a track of the same title.
Brower defines the album as being reflective of the geography of the band's location, taking inspiration from the member's travels and their hometown. He describes the album as sunny, the kind of thing you would "drive around with your windows down," with or "make out" to. He blanches at the term "feel good," but not the idea of pop influence.
"We focus on writing catchy, cohesive songs that people can remember and sing back to you," Brower said. "We're not afraid of the pop because that used to be a good thing and now it's something that rock snobs have given a negative spin."
Well, no critical windbag's here. In fact, Rooney has some of the strongest hooks of the season and though that is often equated with shallow writing and homogenized sound, here it makes for complex, singable material. It's the little quirks that are really holding this album together.
The interplay between the drums and bass courtesy of Matthew Winter and Brower on "Popstars," one of the best tracks on the disc, nails down a solid foundation on which thoughtful lyrics and breathy spaces are built. And again, the song is catchy as all hell.
Carmine's English-boy tenor lilts, "these are the words of the unsophisticated money machines/ for the killers of rock and roll hey digital/ you're nothing but a bitch on strings/ you'll be back milking cows before you cash the check."
And what's a good album without commentary on the commercial machine of mainstream music? Again with the irony - though Rooney's new in the game, it's still sporting a recent deal with Geffen Records.
But Rooney won't slip, Brower insists, it won't even skimp on the details.
"We worked really hard on this record," he said. "We started with a vision and we executed it. It's easy to get lazy if you get signed, but that wasn't really an option. We're still like an independent band in that respect."
Check Rooney out at the Launchpad, 618 Central Ave., tomorrow night.
