AMERICAN PRINCES: Noble Strides

Best known for 2006’s Less and Less, a collection of articulate balls-to-the-wall rockers that landed them on many year-end lists, Little Rock’s American Princes promised fans more and more this year, and so far they’ve delivered. On Other People, their eleven-track follow-up, the Princes employed a new guitarist, Will Boyd, formerly of Evanescence; a new producer Chuck Brody, who’s worked with hip-hop’s finest (Wu Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, Northern State); and a new sound.

Best known for 2006’s Less and Less, a collection of articulate balls-to-the-wall rockers that landed them on many year-end lists, Little Rock’s American Princes promised fans more and more this year, and so far they’ve delivered. On Other People, their eleven-track follow-up, the Princes employed a new guitarist, Will Boyd, formerly of Evanescence; a new producer Chuck Brody, who’s worked with hip-hop’s finest (Wu Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, Northern State); and a new sound. Those expecting gritty, guitar-heavy, punk anthems, as heard on their 2003 debut We ARE the People, won’t find them here, at least not in the same in-your-face form.

“We grew up on ‘90s rock: Pixies, the Replacements, Big Star also Pearl Jam and The Foo Fighters,” says singer/guitarist Collins Kilgore. “Even though we grew up on people bashing their guitar strings, we realized we didn’t have to do that. This time, we approached it with a pop mentality building from postmodern hooks.”

And there are a lot of them. On “Real Love,” the album’s single, singer/guitarist David Slade confesses: “I don’t care about real love/I just want a world that will bear its own weight, that’ll bear its own weight.” Catchy and refreshing, frenetic guitars run circles around the melody, which, on this song and others, seems both anxious and morose, something Slade attributes to his current state of internal affairs. “It’s where I’m at these days as an American. It’s a lonely, confusing place sometimes. We wanted it to be a pop record, but we also wanted it to speak about the darker truths and difficult times we seem to be going through as a culture; it would be dishonest to not speak about that,” he says.

While there are certain songs that feel as though they have a Collins Kilgore or David Slade signature on them, both writers insist that their work is completely collaborative, involving Matt Quin (drums), Luke Hunsicker (bass) and Will Boyd (lead guitar) on everything. Boyd brought “Still Not Sick of You” to the table, although it took some time to get it right. “Every time we tried, it wouldn’t work, but we kept at it. Finally, it began to take shape and turn into a really compelling song, and, consequently, it became one of the most special songs on the record for me,” says Slade.

“Nobody in the band can say they came in with a complete song,” he says. “There’s a certain amount of ego involved when I come to my bandmates with a song that I think is stellar, and they’re, like, ‘Yeah, not this time; try again later.’ It takes sheer will to keep bringing it back in.”

Coming into the studio with 25 some-odd songs, they were able to make brutal editorial decisions with Brody’s help. “We left a lot on the cutting-room floor. We were more precise, and it made for a better product. We feel it’s the best thing we’ve created,” says Kilgore.

Steeped in hard luck, heartache, love and loneliness, the album finds friends drinking themselves into oblivion on “Watch as They Go;” “Son of California” laments a dead-end relationship; and “Don’t Ever Promise” revolves around a romance on the rocks.

For those of us who have time, the American Princes push us to feel something, whether it’s their pain or our own. They’re also pushing themselves this time around. “We wanted to work with themes that people could bring into their own lives, turning the words and melodies into something that was just as much theirs as it was ours,” Slade says. “One of the most important things that pop music does is give the listener their own vehicle for self-expression.”