Spotlight: Those Peabodys

Austin's rising rock stallions Those Peabodys always gets the comparison: AC/DC. Of course, they don't really sound like AC/DC.

"I think people just use AC/DC when they want to say, 'This is a rock & roll band,'" theorizes bassist/singer Clarke Wilson.

"It's more used to describe a guitar sound or some kind of energy rather than what we actually sound like," posits guitarist J.D. Cronise.

"We've got parts where people are like, 'Oh, that sounds like AC/DC,'" says Wilson. "But it gets further away from that as we go along."

The progression has been quite pronounced since the lean, mean, three-minute rock machine of their 2001 Post-Parlo debut, cranked out in its entirety by Wilson and guitarist/vocalist Adam Hatley. Unite Tonight, due in May on New York's Tiger Style Records, is full of five-minute mini-epics that hearken back to the decade of bad haircuts and big arenas.

"We started out as kinda bonehead rock, I guess," says Wilson, lending a peek into the etymology of the band's name. "It's progressed to a different level, more parts, more intricate as far as timing. We got solos and shit now. We got more juice to back it up with."

The current incarnation of Those Peabodys, also featuring drummer Aaron Franklin, is best summed up by the list Wilson and Cronise quickly rattle off: Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, Rush, Van Halen, Led Zeppelin. No mystery here. Just the straight-up rock & roll Wilson and Hatley have been belting out since their high school days in Temple, midway between Austin and Waco.

"All these garage bands today seem to be all about Sixties garage music and Fender twin reverb, Stratocasters, and dressing up -- being a presentation," says Wilson. "I like some of those bands, but it's kinda nice for us to come at it from a different angle. We've got Les Pauls and Marshalls, and we're loud, and we jump around. It's a good angle to come in at I guess.

"We represent."