Everybody in the ’80s had a guy like Burning Brides’ Dimitri Coats in their high schools–the thin, pale, mop-head stoner rarely seen without his guitar.
“I guess I’m still that guy. I guess I really don’t wanna grow up,” says Coats, who can now wear that label without embarrassment.
Burning Brides is just about the brightest throwback to classic guitar rock since the White Stripes.
“Leave No Ashes,” the band’s second disc, is top-to-bottom rawk. The trio’s singer, guitarist, songwriter and mastermind, Coats goes to the wall with any metal band, blows kisses of Southern comfort and Western swagger and drapes it all in melody.
“I don’t think our sound is retro, but it’s been a long time since there’s been a slew of good rock bands that write songs with different styles and colors to them,” he says. “We mix in Nirvana, Oasis, the Pixies. It’s all about the songs.”
Six years ago, in college, Coats–who grew up in Boston–met Melanie Campbell, and the two traveled the country together–Campbell learning how to play bass while Coats looked for a town with an inviting music scene and an affordable basement.
“I was like a rock ‘n’ roll Jack Kerouac,” Coats says. “We just went where the wind took us.”
They tried Portland and San Francisco before settling in Philadelphia, largely because it was cheaper than New York City but close enough to play gigs there. They connected with drummer Jason Kourkounis, put some songs together and found themselves in a bidding battle among record labels after performing at the eminent South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.
At the time, bands such as Papa Roach and Limp Bizkit were setting rock’s course with stripped-down, in-your-face rap rock, but Coats grew up emulating the guitar heroes of yesteryear–Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen and even ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. He wanted to make music that put the guitar at the front of the mix, solos and all.
“You just have to be honest in your feelings, and I’m a guitar player first,” he says.
Burning Brides lucked into some high-profile tours right out of the starting gate, opening for Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age and the White Stripes, among others. The tour to push “Leave No Ashes” is the band’s first as a national club headliner. Coats sees his band as “still very much the underdog.”
“Our first record was a little too self-conscious indie, and this record we didn’t worry about that so much,” he says. “If it’s catchy, let it be catchy. If it’s metal, let it be metal. I love bands like the Ramones that invented a sound, but we’re not about that. We’re about throwing people curveballs and watching people try to hit them.”
Burning Brides
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: The Bottom Lounge, 3206 N. Wilton Ave.
$12 cover
———-
Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
