The Smith Westerns' Cullen Omori Would Love to Be Sued by Courtney Love

"Sorry I keep missing your calls. I'm driving here, and I keep getting pulled over." Cullen Omori, the frontman of Chicago's glam-garage wunderkinds the Smith Westerns, told me as he sped across Pennsylvania last Friday to meet his bandmates for a slew of New York gigs, culminating tonight at the Bowery Ballroom with Wavves. Just a couple of years out of Chicago's Northside College Prep, the Smith Westerns captured the attention of the indie rock universe last year with their debut album, and now they're primed to make the jump to the next level. They recently signed with Fat Possum Records and are currently recording their sophomore album with producer Chris Coady (Beach House, Abe Vigoda). As he kept an eye out for Pennsylvania State Troopers, Omori spoke to PAPER about Freedom Rock, T. Rex, and potentially meeting Courtney Love.


How did the Smith Westerns meet and how long have you been playing music together?
We started playing music under the name the Smith Westerns three years ago. We were still all attending high school. But we've really only been making this kind of music for the past year and a half. One of the members is my brother, so I've known him my entire life. And we're best friends with Max [Kakacek], the other guy who plays with us. The three of us have been the core with a cast of rotating drummers in and out of the mix.

Your self-titled debut album was hailed by several bloggers as the second coming of T. Rex when it came out last year. Was that frustrating considering only a handful of your songs have a Marc Bolan influence?
Well, before we were getting tagged with that, we were called a garage rock band. I'm all right with being compared to T. Rex because it's such a great band. We're content with people saying, "You guys sound like T. Rex." That's a much higher standard to live up to, rather than being compared to some Nuggets band.

Critics also make a big deal out of your youth. Exactly how young are you guys?
I'm 20, my brother [drummer Cameron Omori] is 18, and [guitarist] Max [Kakacek] is 19. So I guess we're young.

You've toured extensively in the past year with Girls and Nobunny. What's the best part about being a young band on the road?
We can think about making music and performing differently than a lot of bands, because unlike a lot of people we're friends with, this isn't our last attempt at music. This isn't our last hurrah. This is the first band I've ever played in -- same goes for Cameron and Max. So we don't have to be really conscious of getting our band noticed.

There was some hubbub over your debut album cover (it's a hybrid of Nirvana's Nevermind cover and a painting of the Virgin Mary). I haven't seen it in record stores lately. Was it pulled from the shelves? Is it now a collector's item?
Actually, no. There were only 3,000 copies of the vinyl pressed by HoZak [Records]. When we signed to Fat Possum for our next record they also acquired to rights to put out our first record. So it should be re-issued with much stronger distribution soon and you should be able to find it.

So you're not in trouble for stealing Nirvana's album cover?
No, and the way I've always viewed is: if we do get in sued for it, we might get to meet Courtney Love. That would be pretty cool.

In the past year, you signed with Fat Possum Records. Why did you choose them?
They had courted us for over a year. We met them at CMJ and then at South by Southwest we talked to them some more. It's not that big of a company. I mean it's a sizable label, but we like the idea that the owner, Matthew Johnson, works right alongside us. There's no A&R guy. With a bigger label we'd probably get an A&R guy, but with Fat Possum, I can just call Matthew and tell him my problems.

Who are you more excited to have as label mates at Fat Possum: Wavves or Al Green?
I like Wavves, but I think it'd have to be Al Green and all the blues guys on the label. For a while we considered ourselves Freedom Rock, and now we're on a Southern label, so it's working out.

Your live shows are really energetic. Is there a philosophy behind your performance style?
When we play live, we just want the audience to be, um, blown away.  Hopefully, it doesn't sound like noise, 'cause a lot of bands sound really bad when they play live, especially bands in our scene. [pause] That probably sounded bad. We just want it to sound different live than when you listen to us in your room.

What does the future hold for the Smith Westerns?
I hope that this next record does really well. We totally changed our songwriting. It's more elaborate and less garage-poppy. I hope people like the songs as much as we do. And I just hope it doesn't fail, because I don't wanna go back to school.

The Smith Westerns play with Total Slacker and Wavves tonight at the Bowery Ballroom. 7 p.m. Tickets are available here.

Photo, from left: Cameron Omori, Cullen Omori and Max Kakacek.