Mild West

Cowboy Indian formed a little over a year ago. According to lead singer and guitar player Lucas Paul, it was the son of bass player John von Nolde, who first heard Paul sing live and insisted that his dad create music with him. Later, a mutual friend, Spike McGuire, introduced the two who then went on to form the band. After trying out many different potential members, Paul and von Nolde found drummer Jimi Revolver and lead guitarist Jorge Pulido to complete the group.

Over the course of the last year, Cowboy Indian has released four songs for their demo tape along with recording other songs. According to Paul, the band is set to release a handful of new songs and perhaps an EP or two next year.

The theme of this collection of new songs is centered around love and love gone wrong, according to Revolver. The songs are also definitely not about drinking, fighting and screwing, according to von Nolde.

“The songs come from our own personal experiences where we’re just writing music,” said Paul, “We’re just trying to write songs like people did in the old days like verses and bridge and a chorus, something really easy to listen to.”

When it comes to the songwriting process, von Nolde said he usually comes up with a simple phrase or slogan consisting of catchy words that rhyme—something that would make for a good bumper sticker, for example. Paul said that von Nolde usually haphazardly writes a chorus, a.k.a. a “bumper sticker,” on a random piece of paper in Paul’s house where Paul then discovers the it at a later time and puts the words to a melody. The chorus from “Kings of Country” from the band’s demo was written by von Nolde, then sculpted and shaped by Paul.

Despite the band’s rockabilly and Western influences, they don’t consider themselves to be a country band or at least not like country artists similar to Dierks Bentley.Von Nolde joked that none of the band members drive a 4X4 or hunt, differentiating them from today’s popular country artists.

“I grew up in Texas, but I never listened to country music,” said Paul, “I was more like the punk rock kid, but I have a lot of tools I can dig into, so when [von Nolde] brings me stuff, I go, ‘What’s the most hillbilly type of melody we can throw on this?’ And I usually can find this because I was around a lot of hillbillyness growing up.”

Paul said that his vocal inspiration isn’t remotely related to country music, either. He learned from Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. According to Paul, Corgan taught him how to sing dynamically because his vocal style would go from angry and raw to super pretty and so on.

All four members of the band are songwriters in addition to being instrumentalists. The majority of the band’s songs have been written by Paul and von Nolde, but Paul said the band is working on finding a consistent voice as a group.

“The main reason why I wanted to be in a band with other musicians that can write songs is that there’s a chance that everyone will eventually write songs, but we hope to collaborate more on the writing of the songs so they’re more of a band effort,” he said.