AMERICANA ROMANTIC - KINGS OF GYPSY PUNK!
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"A thousand years ago they built a rocket ship out of clocks and old toy parts and aimed it at the moon." reads one line.
"If I hear ’Love It Or Leave It’ one more time come from your mouth, I’m going to be sick and get a gun." reads another.
What do they have in common? They are both lyrics from the pages of The Strings. And it works. Mixing beautiful lullabies, raw punk energy, and pop hooks on the same record as socially-aware alt.country folk rock? Yup, and it’s pulled off effortlessly. When asked to describe their sound, he had this to say "People always ask me what [The Strings] sound is like...I hate that question but I realize it’s an important one too. The vocals and song writing have been compared to Elliot Smith, Coldplay, Ryan Adams, and The Replacements. Bob Dylan is also a big influence on me. Someone once told me the music sounded like Wilco and Bruce Springsteen started a band with The Clash. I liked that one."
If that sounds a bit ambitious, well it is. However, Paul Russo (vocalist/songwriter/guitarist) probably has some room to talk. Playing music since he was 15, Paul is a founding member of punk bands ’The Unseen’ and ’The Pinkerton Thugs’. Near-legendary bands in the punk circuit, they contributed much to the rise of the 90’s punk/hardcore scene. The Unseen have sold over 60,000 records and have toured the States, Canada, Europe, and Japan with the likes of Rancid, Bad Religion, AFI, NOFX, Face to Face, Dropkick Murphys, Hatebreed, Anti-Flag, Agnostic Front, The Casualties, The Business, and the Bouncing Souls just to name a few. As well as being a big draw on The Warped Tour for the past few years, it’s hard to go to any show these days without seeing an Unseen shirt or patch. No stranger to the studio either, Paul has appeared on 10 studio albums and countless compilations. This type of "street cred" cannot be bought or fabricated in the board rooms of record executives. Paul is always passionate with any music he puts out. And that is exactly why people are interested in the Strings. Paul explains "I get a lot of people asking me what I’m doing these days. The Unseen have released their new album on Hellcat [Records] and I guess one of the questions is ’What’s Paul doing now?’".
The answer to that starts when one summer he packed whatever fit in the back of his small car, pawned everything else, and traveled across the country, writing songs in hotel rooms, on people’s couches, and at truck stops. "I remember just pulling over where ever I was because ideas for songs would randomly come to mind while I was driving. Traveling America and sleeping under stars on the side of the highway has been one of the most inspiring things I’ve ever done...it definitely made me understand Kerouac that much more."
After a while it became obvious that while the punk urgency and honesty was still there in his new songs, the song writing had progressed into something new. It was at this point he started recording a demo in his living room, doing the vocals, guitar, drums, keyboards, and bass himself. Those songs are what you hear on the myspace page right now. "I was calling it Paul and the Strings, because literally that is what it was, me and my acoustic." Paul explains. He then met up with engineer Scot Bohn who recorded some songs for Paul’s first demo. Scot has since stolen money from Paul and even tried to steal credit for writing some of Paul’s songs. Scot has also gone as far as playing Paul’s songs live and calling them his own. If you come across this person I would be careful, he is a crook and has ripped off many other people as well. (there even used to be a myspace site where people could post what Scot has done to them but he got it removed.)
Paul now is back home in Boston from his travels and is forming a full band under a new name and will start playing shows.
With only ’word-of-mouth’ promotion, the Strings have over 60,000 plays on myspace.com and purevolume.com.
Mark Vieira @ Devastation Media Group. [email protected]
Paul Russo - [email protected]
