Kevin Bronson on February 20th, 2009

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Not too long ago, Funeral Party was playing backyard parties in East L.A. Hundreds of kids came; there was cowbell galore; people danced; and life was good. As the group cultivated an underground following and took its act into clubs, they seemed to be inheritors to the Moving Units’ edgy dance-punk throne.

Now they are broadening their sound and setting theirs sights higher. After getting their feet wet by supporting Yelle on tour last autumn and releasing the “Bootleg EP,” in December, the scrappy bunch has been holed up in a studio with Lars Stalfors (an engineer on the Mars Volta’s Grammy-winning “Wax Simulcra”), working on their debut album, due April 21 on Fearless Records. And this week, in a nifty pairing, Funeral Party kicked off a tour opening for And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.

||| Download: “Carwars” (EP version)

“The sound we used to have has matured – people are going to notice a change,” guitarist James Torres says. “Before it was all cowbell and beats and dance music, but that was the scene. We’ve come up with a new sound, and I think people are gonna like it.”

Torres and co-songwriters Chad Elliott (vocals, keyboards) and Kimo Kauhola (bass), who’ve been joined by new drummer George Verdugo, have re-recorded many of the songs from their EP and written about five new songs. “After playing the old songs for so long, we had a lot of ideas to make them better,” Torres says. “Adding the new parts just came naturally.”

How Funeral Party’s followers will react remains to be seen. “Our fans are pretty cool – a lot of them have been with us a long time. They’re probably gonna be the first ones at the CD release party,” Torres says. Then there are the new audiences, like the Trail of Dead fans. “That’s where the new songs and the new sound come in,” he adds. “I think we’ll prove ourselves.”

||| Live: The Trail of Dead/Funeral Party tour comes to the Echoplex on March 17.