Best of What's Next: Capgun Coup

Hometown: Omaha, Neb.
Album: Maudlin
Members: Greg Elsasser (vocals, keyboards), Sam Martin (vocals, guitar), Jesse McKelvey (guitar), Eric Ohlsson (drums), Roadie (bass)
For Fans of: Black Lips, The Beach Boys, Jay Reatard

By the time Sam Martin finally wakes up, it’s 2:30 on a lazy Nebraska afternoon. The lead vocalist of Capgun Coup rubs his eyes and sweeps his blond hair off his forehead before joining his bandmates on the couch in his mother’s garage in Omaha’s Benson district. Martin, like most of his bandmates, prefers night to day, whiskey to water and playing music to working. “We all kind of have the same attitude about music,” keyboardist Greg Elsasser says. “It’s kind of like a lifestyle.”

After spending their high-school years in the suburbs of west Omaha, Martin, Elsasser and drummer Eric Ohlsson decided they’d had enough. “All small towns have a ‘let’s get out of here’ syndrome,” Martin says. “And it’s a lot easier to get out of there if there’s someplace else in the same city to go to.” They traveled 100 blocks east of where they grew up with bassist Roadie and guitarist Jesse McKelvey and began waging war on the lives they once lived.

Capgun Coup’s 2007 debut, Brought to You by Nebraskafish, introduced listeners to these restless voices of a new slacker generation. But on Maudlin, their latest album, the band has honed its surfy garage rock, uniting the pop sensibilities of The Beach Boys with the sonic irreverence of the lo-fi punk greats. Songs like “Only The Times Are Changing,” an ode to America’s desperation for change, and the deliberately un-PC rant “Wish I Was a Fag” offer a glimpse of the band’s playful songwriting and devil-may-care attitude.

Sitting in the garage amongst band gear and Martin family relics, biding time before they head out to Midtown to hang with friends, it’s clear the band members will never live the lives of their parents. “We work shit jobs just so we can pay rent, but the bigger goal is to tour and make records,” Elsasser says. “That’s kind of my goal — to do whatever the fuck I want with music whenever I want.”