The Life and Times of The Famous

Founders Laurence Scott and Victor Barclay met when Vic spotted Laurence and his Galaxie parked outside a Bay Area laundromat and remarked that he had the exact same car. While a friendship was born that moment, it wasn't until several years and many intervening bands later that The Famous came into being.

Formed late 2003 in San Francisco, The Famous are an indie-rock/americana act whose moods range from squalling and raucous to heartfelt and sparse – all bound by a common thread of emotional intensity and arresting showmanship.

Some songs are sad and pretty, while others have a powerful, spooky feel. The melodies trick you into singing along with tales of paranoia, county fairs, revenge and renewed belief. Girded by the raw sounds of ‘50s-era country, but imbued with the spirit of The Pixies and other post-punk pioneers, The Famous forge powerful tunes that combine the intense desperation of X, the sincere melancholy of Hank Williams Sr. and the interstellar psychobilly of the Reverend Horton Heat.

Part carnival barker, part honky-tonk crooner, vocalist Laurence Scott demands your attention with an unmistakable smoky growl straight from the heart of his native Texas. With notebooks full of abstract expressionism and wordplay, given life through an inspired and unbridled stage presence, Laurence thinks in lyrics and lives for performance.

While Van Halen and Led Zeppelin boiled in his teenage blood, guitarist Victor Barclay spit and swore an eternal hatred for country music – that is until a friend turned him onto Johnny Cash’s Live at Folsom Prison. On stage, Vic’s deadpan one-liners provide the perfect foil for Laurence’s manic No Depression.

Backed by longtime collaborator Chris Fruhauf on drums and native Texan G.D. Hensley (ex- Diesel Boy) on bass, The Famous are spreading the gospel with their incendiary live show to music lovers across the Bay Area and beyond. Their debut album Light, Sweet Crude, was released January 2005 garnering rave reviews from the music press and fans, and enjoying heavy rotation on college radio as well as continuing popularity with podcasters such as Adam Curry.

Rolling into 2007, The Famous have reloaded and are firing off several rounds of new stories and sounds after a year and some days of playing international festivals and a sojourn in the desert Southwest.

NXNE (North By Northeast) in Toronto and the South Park Music Festival outside Denver were but a few of the whistle stops over the past several months for the band. New material for stage, and some soon to be released recordings, were developed amid the cacti of the Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona at Francisco Studios adjacent to the world famous Wavelab.

Currently, The Famous are hard at work on their eagerly expected second album due out in 2008.