New Orleans is an outlaw town. Always has been. Among the city’s first inhabitants were prostitutes and prisoners, expelled by the French government in the early 1700s to rid that country of some of its shadiest characters. Three centuries later, the same spirit of decadence, rebelliousness, and free livin’ that first defined New Orleans is still palpable in the city, especially in its gritty, no holds barred rock scene.

Speaking about NOLA rock and roll, the first name you have to mention these days is Suplecs, a window-rattlin’ power trio equal parts humor and hellfire. The band sounds like a hangover in waiting, with whiskey-fueled odes to hard times and harder drinkin.’ Singer/guitarist Durel Yates alternates a smooth Southern drawl with a gruff holler angrier than a drunk at last call. His guitar playing is both bluesy and biting, intermingling stabbing, high-speed riffs with some of the most lyrical, expressive solos you’re likely to hear in underground rock and roll. Yates shares time on the mic with singer/bassist Danny Nick, whose playing is both acrobatic and assertive. Nick’s big, buoyant basslines add layers of muscle to Suplecs’ fleet-footed boogie. And then there’s drummer Andrew Curtis Preen, who anchors the band’s wide-eyed sound by pounding his kit so hard, you’d swear it had just insulted his momma. Together, these three sweat out coarse ‘n’ catchy Southern rock as sweltering as the Louisiana sun.

After close to a decade together, Suplecs have come out with their most definitive album yet: Powtin’ On The Outside, Pawty On The Inside. The album is immediately evocative of the band’s Dixie stomping grounds. Home to one of the most fertile and ferocious rock scenes in the country, Louisiana is a hotbed of bulldozing, no-nonsense bands, from sludge rock luminaries Crowbar and Eyehategod to misanthropic metal favorites Soilent Green and Goatwhore to moody stoner icons Down and Acid Bath. It’s attitude, not aesthetics, that unites these acts: They all share a common outlook that forgoes pretense for raw power, a dirt-beneath-your-fingernails, D.I.Y. work ethic, and a clear pride in heralding from one of the most hard knock states in the Union.

The NOLA scene is tight knit, as most of the aforementioned bands have toured with one another over the years or shared members, and this manifests itself on Powtin’. The album was produced by one of New Orleans’ most influential musicians, Corrosion of Conformity frontman Pepper Keenan, a longtime friend of the band. The album which will come out on NOLA label, Nocturnal Records, was recorded at the storied Balance Studios in Mandeville, Louisiana, which is owned by producer Dave Fortman, who’s worked with bands ranging from Superjoint Ritual to Mudvayne to Evanescence. Nocturnal Records owner, Gene Joanen, is also involved with the studio. In fact, the label and the studio share one facility.

This setting catalyzed Powtin’, a disc that’s Suplecs’ most dynamic and diverse offering yet. These tunes are about gettin’ wasted, gettin’ knocked down and locked down, and yet somehow always getting right back up to face another day with a weary smile intact. Songs range from white-knuckle punk blasts (“Tsunami”) to balls out jam sessions that sound like Grand Funk Railroad on a three-day bender (“Meatballs and Spaghetti”). Suplecs balance melody with menace on hard-charging anthems like “Gotta Pain,” coming on with tunes tighter than a clenched fist. And if you listen to instrumental freak-out “Cities of the Dead” with headphones on, there’s a good chance your cerebellum will melt.

It’s all a culmination of a sound whose seeds were initially sown in 1996, when Suplecs first got together. The band debuted in 2000 with Wrestlin’ With My Lady Friend, a nasty slab of soot-black groove released on the legendary, now defunct, Man’s Ruin Records run by famed poster artist Frank Kozik. With its blend of smothering, fuzzed-out riffs and instantly infectious tunes, the disc vaulted Suplecs to the top of the stoner rock pecking order, alongside contemporaries like Dixie Witch, High on Fire and Acid King.

But Suplecs soon split ways with many of the more staunchly reefer-rock oriented groups with the release of 2002’s Sad Songs...Better Days. The album was produced by Dave Fortman and pressed for Man’s Ruin, but never distributed as the label collapsed. Instead the album was re-printed and distributed by This Dark Reign/Devil Doll Records. Equally soulful and severe, the album possessed an immediacy and a concision that few of Suplecs’ peers have ever been able to muster. Their video for the lead-heavy “Rock Bottom” was played on Headbanger’s Ball, helping Sad Songs establish this band as more than just dirt rock badasses.

But it’s onstage where Suplecs have really made a name for themselves. The band has toured the States enough times to turn the odometer over on many a Ford Econoline, having hit the road with such like-minded hellraisers as Clutch, Alabama Thunderpussy, High on Fire and Gwar. They’ve shown all the fresh faced punks how it’s done on the Warped Tour, and somehow made Austin even more debauched for four years running with their SXSW showcase stomps.

With plenty more roadwork planned in support of their latest, Suplecs will soon be knocking crowds on their derrieres all over the country. Grab your favorite adult beverage and join them, ’cause once this Pawty gets started, you won’t want it to stop.

SUPLECS DISCOGRAPHY
2005 Powtin’ On The Outside, Pawty On The Inside
Nocturnal Records

2002 Sad Songs. . . Better Days
Man’s Ruin Records and This Dark Reign/Devil Doll Records

2000 Wrestlin’ With My Lady Friend
Man’s Ruin Records

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