Reaching all the way back to
Bob Dylan and
the Band's pioneering blend of mythic Americana and shaggy rock & roll, alongside more recent points of comparison like
Built to Spill,
Modest Mouse, and
My Morning Jacket,
Roy (a band, not a dude) blend spiky post-
Pavement indie rock with folk and country influences for a sound that's connected to the musical past but not beholden to it. For over a decade, singer and guitarist
Brian Cook and drummer Dave Verellen were the mainstays of
Botch, a Seattle post-hardcore act specializing in heavy riffs and showy time-signature shifts.
Roy began as a side project in 2002, bringing
Cook and Verellen together with singer and guitarist
Ben Verellen and bassist
Mike Cooper. Naming themselves after the small rural town near Tacoma where Dave Verellen lived and worked as a firefighter,
Roy debuted with 2003's
Tacomatose EP, followed by 2004's
Big City Sin and Small Town Redemption. Though
Roy toured extensively behind their two records, the band went on a temporary hiatus while
Cook and
Ben Verellen turned their focus to another side project, the more
Botch-like heavy math rockers
These Arms Are Snakes.
Roy reconvened in 2005 to write and record their second full-length album,
Killed John Train, which was released by Lujo Records in the spring of 2006. ~ Stewart Mason