Howler or bust

For the first half of our interview, Jordan Gatesmith was in dick mode. The 20-year-old Howler frontman was borderline antagonistic on the phone, brushing off questions and snarking out flippant responses.

Hey, Jordan, how was South by Southwest? "I don't know. I don't have any feeling."

OK, how popular can your band get? "You're asking the complete wrong person."

Well, what would you like to be asked? "I wish people would ask me more bullshit questions, that's what I need more of. Just questions that have no relevance whatsoever."

Right.

Eventually the air was cleared, with the nascent punk-rocker copping to the stresses of constant interviewing -- this was his fourth that day.

"It gets tiring after a while and then you just get to a point where you press the dick button," Gatesmith admitted, later apologizing for his bad mood.

Everything about Howler has come about at breakneck speed. The band formed in 2010 as a means for Gatesmith -- then a student at DeLaSalle High School and guitarist in Total Babe -- to vent boredom. The scrappy garage-rockers quickly caught the attention of the esteemed English label Rough Trade, the former home to the Strokes and the Libertines. Last spring, Rough Trade sent A&R manager Paul Jones stateside to see the band rehearse at Jack's in south Minneapolis and give the final stamp of approval. Jones hurried to the United States to scout them the same week he first heard them.

"Honestly, if I didn't like them, I would report back and say it's not right," Jones said. "But I didn't. I thought they were exciting and have a lot to offer." Jones, who has also snared acts such as Alabama Shakes and Warpaint, was sold on Howler's straight-to-the-heart songwriting, exuberance and quirky humor --he compares them to the Strokes, the Modern Lovers and the Replacements.

Howler then spent 2011-12 touring Europe, Japan and Brazil, finding time to release its debut LP for Rough Trade, "America Give Up," earlier this year. The lineup also expanded, with bassist France Camp joining Gatesmith, keyboardist Max Petrek, guitarist Ian Nygaard and drummer Brent Mayes. Brits couldn't get enough of Howler, spurring fawning writeups from the likes of NME and the BBC. Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr even counts himself as a fan.

The United States has proved a harder nut to crack. Audiences are less frenzied, and outlets such as Pitchfork have offered only measured praise. "America is building slowly," reports Petrek, blaming a flooded U.S. indie-rock market.

Locally, things went sour last month when Gatesmith ripped the Twin Cities in a U.K. podcast, saying "screw 'em" and questioning the insular, back-patting nature of the music scene here. "I have an opinion and every fucking other asshole has an opinion," he told Vita.mn after the kerfuffle, adding that he wasn't worried about burned bridges. And perhaps he has no reason to be. Howler had barely tested the local waters before Rough Trade swooped in, immediately moving the band to the international stage.

"If a blog writes about you, pretty much straight away the clock starts ticking. We have to be very quick on the bands, quicker than we ever used to be," Jones said. "So bands have got to have something to follow it up."

Jones says that Howler has delivered for Rough Trade thus far, and he sees a high ceiling for growth. "I think they've got really catchy, radio-friendly songs," he said, noting that the live show is tightening up and sounding beefier. "I see them taking the path the Strokes were on when they came over," he added, even forecasting Top 40 potential.

Does Gatesmith agree with his A&R man?

"No. I don't know," he responded. "I'm just gonna write whatever bullshit spews out of me. It could maybe be a Top 40 hit, maybe it's just gonna be an indie-rock thing that floats under the radar."

Gatesmith's songwriting so far has proven more advanced than that of most 20-year-olds. Deftly disaffected one-liners like "Pretend that you can hold a gun/And I'll pretend that you're the only one" (on the rockabilly-flavored single "Back of Your Neck") litter "America Give Up." Gatesmith stays active at writing, saying he feels like an "utter sack of shit" if he goes a week without new material. Whatever the outcome, the young frontman has no shortage of confidence. "For some reason I have a strange ability to write catchy pop melodies," he said. "I think that's something very strong in my favor. I don't know where it came from or how it happened, but it's strong enough to get me to where I am now."

That rock geekdom should be present on Howler's sophomore album, which is planned to be a departure from the surfy garage-punk of "America Give Up." Dropping names such as Os Mutantes, the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones, Petrek and Gatesmith say their follow-up, due in early 2013, will borrow heavily from psych-rock.

"From day one I wanted my first album to be a punk-rock record. I wanted to make a record that was more slimy than anything else," Gatesmith said, adding that he's excited about making a shift into more groove-based territory. Expect the punk ethos to remain, he says, but not necessarily in three chords at 160 beats per minute.

Howler has graded out admirably at every step along its accelerated career. But so did Tapes 'n Tapes, a local group that attained Next Big Thing status in 2006 before fading. So is there pressure for Howler to keep delivering?

"There's one anxiety that I definitely suppress and that's, 'What do I do now? Especially in America, what's my point?'" Gatesmith said. "I don't know exactly how long Howler is gonna last and if I'm gonna make millions of dollars or if I'm gonna make nothing. There's the anxiety of 'What's after this?' I quit [college] to do this."

There's obviously no crystal ball to reveal whether Howler is destined for fleeting buzz or a protracted career, but Gatesmith isn't looking toward the future. Or is he?

Translation: Don't expect him back in a college lecture hall anytime soon.