Watch Never Shout Never's Live at Rolling Stone Set

Christofer Drew, who records under the name Never Shout Never, is this year's breakout emo-pop star: the 19-year-old Missouri native draws scores of shrieking girls to his shows and his debut album, What Is Love?, debuted at Number 24 on the Top 200. But Drew's influences reach far beyond "screamo electronica," as he calls it: he's more likely to throw on some old-school Buddy Holly records than a Fall Out Boy album. "I don't want to be limited to a certain sound," he tells Rolling Stone. "That'll make you a sad person in the long run."

Drew dropped by the RS offices earlier this week to play acoustic versions of two new tracks, "Harmony" and "Coffee and Cigarettes." He'll spend most of the summer on the road with the Warped Tour, and he's already plotting out his follow-up record, which he hopes to put out in August. "It'll be called Harmony," he says. "And it'll be more Woody Guthrie-influenced. This is me just experimenting with a new type of music. I want everything to be a new style."

As for his rabid female fanbase, Drew says he's still getting used to all the attention. "They know the words to the songs," he says. "I don't even have to sing them live. I can step away from the mike and just let them sing 'em. It's really weird. I'm the weirdest, smelliest dude you'll ever meet but for some reason these girls like it."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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