Smith Westerns are a trio from Chicago who play peppy, glammy power pop in the style of Supergrass, David Bowie and T. Rex. The band started when the members — Cullen Omori and Max Kakacek, both 20, and Cameron Omori, 19 — were still in high school.

They have a sound like psychedelic teenage bliss. In just two years, the band have evolved from turning out ramshackle Nuggets-style garage rock to writing slick, highly melodic tunes with the bittersweet emotional power of Big Star and the shimmering production values of Electric Light Orchestra.

Though the band members were born in the '90s, they're primarily inspired by music from the '60s. "We were listening to a lot of early '60s stuff, nothing like super deep cuts or anything like that," Cullen says, reflecting on the band's beginnings. "We were listening to early Pink Floyd records, early Rolling Stones. We were in the transition you go through, where you don't listen to pop radio anymore, but you're kinda past listening to, like, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, and you try to find the next thing. That's how we met, we were all trying to discover a lot of old music just because no one else we knew cared or wanted to listen to anything at the time. We were listening to Spacemen 3 too, but I think it was one of those things where none of us were good enough to emulate what we were listening to, so it came out as crappy punk music. "

The band's second album Dye It Blonde has a clean, polished production style that's a world away from their debut's scrappy, garage rock aesthetic. Though the band has only been around a few years, they're already used to dealing with the downside of internet hype.

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