Video: The Americans, ‘The Right Stuff’

Kevin Bronson on October 11th, 2017

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The Americans (Photo by Concepcion Studios)

If you are an American band doing straight-ahead American rock ’n’ roll and you call yourselves the Americans, you have your work cut out for you. Make it good, because chances are slim you’re going to be discovered accidentally on Google. Fortunately for the L.A. quartet the Americans, they fly the roots-rock flag high, and with a high degree of acuity.

The band is built around the bond formed by boyhood pals Patrick Ferris (singer-guitarist) Jake Faulkner (bassist), both former buskers who eventually met guitarist Zac Sokolow in L.A. And on Nov. 3 (the release date has been pushed back from October), the Americans will release their debut “I’ll Be Yours” via Loose Music. Having already been released across the Atlantic and gained some acclaim there, the album’s finely crafted tunes feature Ferris’ raspy troubadour voice waxing on Everyman themes, with hardly a lick out of place. Old-school, dusted with enough modernity (and relevant storytelling) to make it current. And like its namesake land, the quartet’s sound is more melting pot than anything with a direct antecedent. Ferris says of the band’s beginnings: “There was no band we wanted to be like. We were curious if we could create something brand new, summoning the spirit of old blues and country through what we’d learned firsthand, leaving nostalgia behind.”

And when in doubt, make a video in the bed of a pickup truck.

||| Watch: the video for “The Right Stuff”