Breaking: Alberta Cross

Who: Alberta Cross, a quintet of stoner rock revivalists from Brooklyn-via-London-via-Sweden who became one of the summer's must-see new bands thanks to appearances at Coachella and Bonnaroo.

Sounds Like: Nineties-style shoegaze guitar dissonance fused with the laid-back hippie folk rock of 1970's Los Angeles. It's all topped off with the high-lonesome vocals of lead singer Petter Ericson Stakee, a Swedish import whose voice recalls Neil Young and Jim James. Their full-length debut Broken Side of Time features wind tunnels of bent guitar riffs, distort power chords and the haunting melodies of rural American music.

Vital Stats:

• Before recording their new album, the five members of Alberta Cross holed up at Haunted Hollow studio owned by Dave Matthews — the band is signed to Matthews' ATO label — outside Charlottesville, Virginia. "We were in the middle of the forest, just drinking wine and smoking weed and jamming for, like, 10 hours a day," Ericson Stakee tells Rolling Stone. These jam sessions help craft the slow-burner "Rise from the Shadows" and the big-sky rocker "Taking Control."

• Stakee wrote the acoustic number "Ghost of City Life" about the hipsters that walked around the band's then-home base of Brooklyn, New York. "You know who I'm talking aboutâ€"the people you meet in the city, the scenesters and all," Ericson Stakee said. "I was just sick of the city, tired of all the fake people."

• After recording their album in Austin, Texas, with Spoon producer Mike McCarthy, the band fell in love with the Lone Star capital and are now contemplating a move there. "Everybody welcomed us with open arms: 'Come on, let me buy you a drink, there's a party later,' " says bassist Terry Wolfers, who formed the band with Ericson Stakee after the two met in an East London bar. Life in Austin does have its dangers, however: "I OD'd on Mexican food," Ericson Stakee jokes.

Hear It Now: Broken Side of Time is due out September 22nd. Watch Alberta Cross perform "ATX" above.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

More Song Stories entries »

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