Scoundrels are a rock/pop band from London.

Taking songs born from a British sensibility and stirring in two distinctly American approaches, Scoundrels' bluesy-rock style is eclectic and original.

A fantastic and fresh band to liven up any party.

The suburbs of London are a long way from the swamps of Louisiana, and crossing the musical space between is the stuff that dreams are made of. But sometimes, when you concoct the right potion of talent, work, and magical circumstance, you will find that those dreams can come true. This is the story of Scoundrels, and how they got there.

For Ned Wyndham 26, vocals/guitar), Alex 'Billy' Hill (23, bass) and Joshua C Martens (24, drums) the journey had inauspicious beginnings. Being friends since their schooldays, they already shared the first magic ingredient of band chemistry, and a shared a love of 50s soul, roots, doo wop and classic rock led them all to London’s LCCS music college where they were able to hone their skills, putting on rootsy nights at Notting Hill Arts Club and The Borderline and recruiting the final piece of their band jigsaw George Elliot (20, guitar) along the way. “College equipped us and it helped with our confidence,” admits Ned today, but they will admit that then, only two years ago, they had tendencies to play hour-long single-song jams peppered with renditions of the Batman theme. They picked their name simply “because it was better than Carpet Lickers.” Nothing wrong with that of course, but the real dream at play was to find and authentic British version of the kind of soul, rock and blues that existed in their record collections and their imaginations. And when they managed to do that, they would find things moving faster than they could ever have imagined.

Being enterprising types, the band had compiled a list of industry figures to which to send their demo. And in a moment of brilliant serendipity one of the first (in all likelihood one of the only) people to take the time to listen to it was the A&R legend of Sire Records, Seymour Stein, the man responsible for the careers of no smaller names than Madonna and The Ramones. Stein passed the tape to swamp pop production pioneer CC Adcock, and the dreams of these four English boys became the business of these two American heavyweights.

A few weeks and feats of management money-making magic later, and the band were on their way to their Beatles-In-Hamburg moment. They flew to the town of Lafayette (population 60,000) and were collected by a long-haired roadie with one tooth called Hart, he would become their ever present confidante, driver and general do-gooder, ferrying the band in his 22-foot Lincoln Continental called the Cream Puff, accompanied at every stage by “a slightly bedraggled old stripper.”

There, they slept on a houseboat in the Louisiana swamps, lived on a diet of Crawfish and Gumbo, watched two or three bands every night, most of which invited them up onstage with them and gorged themselves on a diet of zydeco jazz, blues and modern rock. And by day they laid down the songs that were growing and evolving with every minute, growing rich in the Louisiana spirit. 

The sessions with CC at Studio in the Country and La Louisianne might have opened out their music, but the warmth and hospitality of the people there had an effect on a band raised on the uptight London music scene that will stay with them forever. And this was not even to be the end of the Scoundrels American adventures. Having two legends have a hand in their debut album was clearly not enough. After six weeks in Louisiana they headed to Chicago to work with Steve Albini, whose organic approach of letting bands do things for themselves gave the record another flavour again.

Taking songs born from a British sensibility and stirring in two distinctly American approaches, Scoundrels' debut mines a virgin sound. And saying a lot for the band’s unique identity, it is not immediately apparent which songs came from which sessions. The songs speak of youth and love and hope and hopelessness, putting an arched spin on the myth of sex and drugs and rock’n’roll.

‘Red Riding Hood’ puts a sexy, swampy spin on the predatory subtext of one of our most popular fairytales. ‘All On My Own’ channels the most legendary of bluesmen in a timeless tale of unrequited love, while the louche ‘Sexy Weekend’ is as satirical as it might sound self-indulgent.

A film documenting the making of the album by director Wyatt Garfield may be able to answer that one a little more accurately. But that the band have come up with a record that lives up to all of the classic rock rebellion they set out to encapsulate is undeniable.