Luke Spiller & The Struts: Making Travel Back to 1978 Fun Again!

One simple video by the band grabbed me...and, I didn't even care if they were called "alt," "indie," or whatever! Genres/schmenres! They're anachronistic...THAT's what grabbed me! My money? On them!

The dictionary defines “anachronism” as “a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.”

Don’t be offended by that last phrase, Struts…that’s your best quality. I sense you wear it proudly! You’d better. It suits you.

Rock star garb and “I don’t give a rat’s ass” ‘tude? Check. Obligatory blasé, distracted-by-something-off-camera-during-photo-shoot maneuver? Check. This is a 4-piece rock band straight outta central casting. And, that’s not a dig.

No Eric Carmen Bouffant Here, Thankyouverymuch!

Imagine a bastard child of The Black Crowes and Faces. How ‘bout Aerosmith taking Raspberries out behind Dingwalls or Max’s, roughing ‘em up a bit, and forcing them to not wear matching white suits? You might get The Struts, the best 21st-century band that proudly—and delightfully unselfconsciously—wears a 20th-century pedigree.

They’re brash, but endearing; bratty, but still scruffy-cute enough to bring home to mama; in fact, they’ve got what it takes to bring back fan clubs and Tiger Beat!

They’re far more than just a bar band place-holder with warmed-over Chuck Berry riffs. They’re the rag-tag, Stones-whelped proper rockers you’d want them to be…but (and, this is their big but), they’ve got what Mick and company’s street-fightin’ men dared not tout: A glorious and glaring pop sensibility:

Ringing guitars, multi-part harmonies, and chord patterns that make you sit up and take notice….in case their tousled, cheeky mop-tops that would’ve made Gloria Stavers pop lady-wood, hadn’t already.

Meet The Struts (l-r): Guitarist Adam Slack, frontman/vocalist Luke Spiller, drummer Gethin Davies, bassist Jed Elliott. In their short history (according to Germany’s Deichbrand Festival), they’ve opened for such rock luminaries as The Rolling Stones (in Paris, 2014), The Who, Guns N’ Roses, and The Foo Fighters, whose own Dave Grohl flatly stated that The Struts were “the best band to ever open for The Foo Fighters.”