The Dandy Warhols

"SMELLY BOY ROCK" RULES THE DAY ON THE PORTLAND ALT-ROCKERS' RIFF-DRIVEN NEW RELEASE 

- Damon Orion

TRYING TO PUT the Dandy Warhols’ music in one simple category is like trying to hold a snake prisoner in a shopping cart. While best known for snappy altrock stompers like “Bohemian Like You” and “Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth,” the cheeky Portland-based quartet has put its stamp on everything from orchestral jazz to beer-can-shootin’ country/ rock over the past three decades.

Singer/guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor says that when it came time to start work on the Warhols’ 12th studio album, Rockmaker, his goal was to create “a whole record of the heaviest, most fuzzed-out, bristling-with-white-energy metal and punk guitars.” Drummer Brent DeBoer embraced that vision from the word go, but not everyone in the band was on board. “I guess if you say ‘metal,’ people think of a ball-garglin’ vocal style, Cookie Monster or a rawkin’ maaaaan… a man rockin’ other men,” Taylor says.

Keyboardist Zia McCabe, in particular, wasn’t feeling the noise. “She was like, ‘You’re just making smelly boy rock!’” Taylor says with a laugh. “[I said,] ‘No, we’re not. We’re just doing smelly teenage boy guitar. The rest of it is definitely not going to be [