Band of the Week: Howlies

Hometown: Atlanta, Ga.
Fun Fact: A “howlie” (or “haole”) is a slang term for a tourist in Hawaii, not some sort of wolf creature.
Why They're Worth Watching: Howlies have taken 1950s and ‘60s rock and turned it on its head, creating an anachronistic mash-up of songs that translate to the stage like a happy monster unleashed from its cage.
For Fans Of: Chuck Berry, surf rock, early Beatles

The hidden track on Howlies’ debut record, Trippin’ With Howlies, features legendary producer Kim Fowley dryly reading the liner notes he’s written for it, voice dripping with equal parts sincerity and irony. “Howlies are the first rock band of the 21st century,” he says. “Trippin’ With Howlies is a vinyl-inspired analogue raid on the ProTools present.” It wouldn’t be worth mentioning if it wasn’t so spot-on. Atlanta’s Howlies, re-formed from the ashes of experimental band Moresight, formed in late 2007, wielding an arsenal of traditionally-inspired rock song structures topped with relentless performance energy and fun-loving lyrics.

Justin Brooke, one of the band’s guitarists and vocalists, explains this choice of songwriting styles as more of a continuation of those early rock ideas than a revival of them. “When I went back to this sort of early rock ‘n' roll music form, I realized that they were not only really great songs, but they were music forms that have survived up until now, in some way or another,” he says. “I actually think they’re fresher-sounding than a lot of stuff that you hear now that’s based in the ‘80s, because that’s been done so much in the last eight years.”

To complete their tribute to the sounds that influenced them, Howlies (Brooke, drummer/vocalist Aaron Wood, guitarist Brandon Morrison and bassist Matt Forsee) went in search of a producer that witnessed the movement firsthand. They were shocked when, after sending him a message online, Fowley (The Modern Lovers, The Seeds, Blue Cheer, The Runaways) agreed to work on their record, and they journeyed to California to record the whole album with him in just under three days. “When we actually went to record,” Brooke relates, “we went over to his house, and his living room floor is just covered with people’s demo CDs, hundreds and hundreds of them. So the fact that he even listened to ours is amazing to me.”

Maybe Fowley agreed because Howlies, whatever similarities they seem to share with the rest of the pack, somehow stand out from it. Tracks like “Angeline” and “Aluminum Baseball Bat” boast of insight (and more than a little humor) into the psychology behind the rock-club circuit that most bands never achieve—one that seems inextricably tied to Atlanta. Fowley calls them the “Cassanovas of Cabbagetown” [an Atlanta neighborhood], and Brooke cites the examples of recently successful local acts like Deerhunter, Black Lips, The Selmanaires and Snowden as motivation for their increased touring. “We would not have been able to do what we’re doing if we had not moved to Atlanta,” Brooke explains. “Just being around a lot of other good bands, and being in a place where you can go play four or five different good clubs in the same town, that’s really been inspiring for us.”

Watch the video for Howlies' "Angeline" here.