Dandy Warhols Strip Down Sound

Oct. 10 -- The Dandy Warhols, the Portland, Ore., quartet that’s won the favor of both critics and cognoscenti with the eclectic blend of styles that is found on its third album, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia, is once again a buzz band.

But guitarist Peter Holmstrom says hipster status is something that the quartet, which lit up MTV in 1997 with the David LaChapelle-directed clip for “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth,” has grown used to over the years. “Pretty much ever since the beginning, this band has had a buzz going on it,” says Holmstrom, who co-founded the band with frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor, keyboardist-bassist Zia McCabe, and drummer Eric Hedford, who has since been replaced by Brent DeBoer.

“We’ve always been the next big thing for six years now, so we’re pretty used to that. We don’t really pay much attention to it, to be honest. We always think we’re a pretty big thing; we’re just tired of waiting until the time everybody [else] realizes it, I guess.”

Breakthrough Single, Maybe?Thanks to strong modern rock airplay for “Bohemian Like You,” Thirteen Tales’ first single, that time might be drawing closer. But Holmstrom knows that the group is sucking new fans in with a musical confection that’s only partially representative of the stylistic gamut it spans in its repertoire.

“What we always try to do is just record whatever songs we have in the way that seems most suitable for the song,” Holmstrom explains. “We always try to push it as far as we can in whatever direction seems right, which is why some sound like country songs and others sound like little new wave songs, [and] why Courtney sings differently on different songs.

“We have as many different instruments and musicians around as possible, so when we think of something we can just do it instead of searching for somebody or something.”

The big distinction on Thirteen Tales, however, is that this time, the Dandy Warhols took the extra step of listening to the songs and then deliberately simplifying them, cutting away layers of guitars, keyboards, and vocal tracks while still keeping the “psychedelic, hypnotic effect” that Holmstrom says the group tries to achieve as an overall feel.