Reagan Babies Play the 21st Century Blues

April 30, 2007 — -- The Cold War may have ended in the early 1990s, but things are just heating up for the Cold War Kids, a band for their time.

The debut album from four California kids with confused passions and a taste for tectonic bass lines, "Robbers and Cowards," offers a mess of strong songs that are, at last, weighted down by an overbearing ethos.

The name, an ambitious title indeed, provides "a really good background to write as many characters and stories as we could," bassist and founder Matt Maust told ABC News' The Mix.

The Cold War, he reminds us, was "50 years of chaos" -- chaos from which, we are meant to understand, the band drew a bold set of influences: Tom Waits, Charles Schulz and Ronald Reagan to name a few. It's a boastful weave, but the fact is their tunes owe more to Flea than Perestroika.

They are schizophrenic kids too, for as their Downtown Records press release states, "They listen to their tiny inner voice to manipulate and structure their style with honesty."

Injections of honesty? Sounds kind of L.A.

"Our thing is, people are always saying we don't sound like a California band," said singer Nathan Willett. "We live in Long Beach, which is like three miles south of L.A. It's just that L.A. has a lot of bad images -- like Glam Rock and the Sunset Strip."

"It's not bad," guitarist Jonnie Russell said, "but when we think of what inspired us, it comes from more landlocked places maybe -- or other coasts."

The Cold War Kids, both individually and as a group, are well traveled, if not distinctly Californian. Maust dreamed up the group's name, which doubles as the title of his graphic design Web site, while "two-footing" around Eastern Europe.

More two-footing, four-wheeling and probably some jet-setting await the group this month. They're scheduled to play a May Day show in London, followed by stops in Paris, Oslo, Munich and Zurich. Add in a quick romp through Japan during the last weekend of the month and you have a proper world tour.

But for today, the band, which also include young drummer Matt Aveiro, are on the subway in New York City and being interviewed by ABC News. Underground and speeding along, they seem comfortable here. In New York they can be ignored -- despite selling out the Bowery Ballroom -- free to play some hipster soul music and go to church without raising any Botox eyebrows.