It’s a crazy and maddening and inspiring place to live.

If it means my surroundings, that I can say that I’ve long used my experiences derived from living in and roaming around Manhattan as inspiration for the lyrics to many of my compositions. Larry: I am not sure what’s meant by “environment”. How has your environment influenced the type of music you put out? Also, I think the lyrical content of many of our songs makes that clear. I don’t remember what triggered us to go with the title of the movie, but the idea of a bunch of Clint Eastwood cowboy types, who’ve seen a bit of life and the world, riding into town to do our thing felt right. Larry Studnicky: We like to consider ourselves a collective of musicians, as most of us have had life-long careers as artists. How did you come up with the name The High Plains Drifters? But, hey, if you’re enjoying yourself, HPD’s feeling pretty alright with that. Viewers might miss the lyrics amidst the funky, gotta-dance tune and the enthralling visuals. Neons from the red-light district flash before your eyes, and you’re tossed into a dizzying cityscape where you last parted paths with this impossible beauty.

Amidst manikin legs and sensuous paintings, a luscious fantasy woman teases and turns over what’s probably your childhood bunk bed. In this erotic dreamscape, the group evokes pure nocturnal lust. The lyric video, however, holds memories of a different “one that got away,” starring Marit Holan Brattås. In case you missed it, the official music video for “The One that Got Away” (directed by Lars Skaland) featured a relatively wholesome jaunt through Trondheim, Norway with captivating girl-next-door Julie Louise Bjelke. The sum effect teleports us to the no-man’s-land-no-more between Daft Punk and Nick Cave, where HPD is throwing a Tron-inspired Burning Man festival… ya dig? Listen to it, and see for yourself. Somehow the band takes their frontman’s genuine despair and stretches it like a rubber band over driving rhythmic riffs, through shocks of zipping synths, and ties it off around a classic house kick-pah beat. Roaring out the longing lyrics, Studnicky tees up a simple situation loaded with emotion: a love losing itself to time. The group’s latest single, “The One the Got Away,” will not get away from your eardrums anytime soon. Let go of anything you thought they might be, and allow yourself to drift on a more elevated plane of musicality. Behind him, producer Greg Cohen, guitarist John Macom, keyboardist Charles Czarnecki, guitarist Mike DoCampo, drummer Kyle Cassel, and bassist Dave Richards stand ready to infuse Studnicky’s lovelorn tales with electro-pop synths, bossa-nova vibes, and more. Since then, he has honed a unique storytelling style, voiced with influences ranging from the Punk and New Wave movements to an amalgam of icons like The Travelling Wilburys. The roots of frontman Larry Studnicky found fertile soil when, in his last two years of college, Elvis Costello released “My Aim Is True” and then the Rolling Stones released “Some Girls”. The make-up of this seasoned band obliges such a range.

Their drifting is expressed in music that has repeatedly been called “genre-bending”. Yes, their name begs a conjuring of tumbleweed and campfires, but the plains they traverse are musical.

On the brink of releasing their second album, The High Plains Drifters continue to defy expectations. By Jerry Doby 0 The High Plains Drifters Talk Making Music and New Single ‘The One the Got Away’

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