Mixing the stomp and swagger of a rock ‘n roll band with the danceable drama and rule-breaking spirit of pop music, Pet Fangs bridge the gap between old and new, raw and refined, organic and digital.

The band members call their sound “garage-pop,” pointing to a range of influences — from Prince to T Rex to Let’s Dance-era David Bowie — as wide and varied as the group’s own material. All four members of Pet Fangs hail from South Louisiana, where brothers Joe and David Stark first attracted an audience as co-founders of the swampy rock band Baby Bee. Signed to Republic Records, Baby Bee launched as a duo and steadily expanded into a larger lineup, with Jory Cordy and Ben Alleman joining the ranks. Cordy, Alleman, and the two Stark siblings were all songwriters and multi-instrumentalists in their own right, having logged time in the touring bands for artists like Ryan Adams, Marc Broussard, and Grace Potter. Together, though, they were something more: a tight-knit, democratic unit of musicians whose new songs were bigger, bolder, and broader than anything they’d created before. Looking to move outside of the rules they’d placed upon themselves as a rock band, they dissolved Baby Bee and launched a new band. A band with bite. Pet Fangs was born.

From the start, Pet Fangs embraced change. The guys switJched instruments often. They switched recording studios, too, looking to chase down different sounds in a string of ever-changing environments. In doing so, they approached their new music like a rock group. They focused on hooks, grooves, and riffs, playing organic instruments along the way. Then, once the basic blueprint for each track had been laid, they abandoned the rule book altogether. Real instruments were sonically manipulated. Live drums were joined by programmed loops. Synthesizers and vocal effects were added to the mix. It was a no-limits approach to pop music, blending the influence of older decades with current sounds and rules-free experimentation. Joining them throughout the studio process was producer, engineer, and honorary “ghost member,” Justin Tocket, who manned the recording console and collaborated on new material during its earliest stages.

From their forthcoming single, “Gold Coast Dreaming” (releasing August 18, 2017), to the internationally recognized “Bitch Baby” (whose percussive punch and sexy strut helped land the song in a Chinese fashion advertisement campaign for Umbro and Madonna’s Material Girl clothing line), Pet Fangs’ music represents something new. It’s equal parts attitude, atmosphere, and adventurousness, glued together by four songwriters whose rock ‘n roll pedigree lends edge and electricity to their spacey pop music.

J BURTON

For all his singing about light and fire, J Burton is most comfortable in darkness. He’s a long suffering songwriter — going on 20 years and counting — with a knack for a pessimist’s nostalgia, preferring to cast the amber of the past as faded glory.

THE CAMPS