Hardly out of junior high, The Rockwells (minus keyboardist Ben Buckner) first started turning heads around town when they began gigging as the pop-punk trio, Your Name Here.  Despite logging studio time with Grammy-award winning producer Randy Everett, their youthful romps through covers like TLC’s “Waterfalls” and the campfire standard “Kumbaya” – which sounded like Green Day on Ritalin – are a thing of the past. The four high school classmates have shed the punk rifts, but kept the pop melodies, simply refining them for a more mature sound.  Before film school, soccer scholarships and undergraduate degrees led the band members to four different locales (Millsaps, Ole Miss, Richmond and NYU), they took five days to record their five-song debut EP as The Rockwells with native Jacksonian and accomplished singer-songwriter Neilson Hubbard at his home studio in Nashville. Released independently, The Rockwells EP is a crisp, straightforward pop/rock record with beguiling hooks and infectious melodies that flow from Patrick Addison’s deft bass work.  Dent May’s vocals sound something like Morrissey belting an Elvis Costello tune and are perfectly complemented by Hubbard’s production chops and gorgeous background vocals. Anchored by drummer Jack Bell’s solid rhythm, the bittersweet third track, “Honestly Me” harkens back to a time when the teenage lament love song was something more than the whiny vocals, teary eyes and Kleenex boxes the emo generation has offered.  The group’s most promising sound surfaces on “When We Were Young,” which hints at surf rock, ends in a multi-part harmony that’s probably a leftover page in Brian Wilson’s notebook, all the while maintaining the charm of modern day pop giants like Fountains of Wayne. In fact, The Rockwells were crooning about attractive mothers way before Fountains of Wayne had 40 year olds in bikinis on MTV.  Though limited in their playing right now, the band hopes to re-convene this summer for regular touring and possibly more studio time. 

by Palmer Houchins