![\"New](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/web-New_York_Rifles-23.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cGirl Shaped Girl\u201d is the group\u2019s third release on the indie labels Empty Records and In Music We Trust. Their first release, \u201cFaraway Faster,\u201d came out in 2008, and their second was \u201cMake A Wish,\u201d in 2009. Lead singer and guitarist Scott Young said a fourth album is on the way, hopefully by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is to get back into the studio as soon as we get back from this summer tour,\u201d he said. \u201cProbably we\u2019ll have a new album out in the next six months or so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young has a raspy twang behind his voice that sounds a bit like a male version of Janis Joplin, and just like that famous \u201960s rocker, he seems to scream his lungs out over each guitar-heavy song that the group plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s rock \u2018n\u2019 roll; it basically goes under that umbrella,\u201d Young said. \u201cIt\u2019s always a tricky thing to figure out. It has some \u201960s garage, \u201970s rock and an \u201980s kind of feel to it in some places.\u201d<\/p>\n
The band\u2019s sound is \u201call over the map,\u201d Young said, in terms of what each member likes and what they were listing to on the radio growing up. He also said they have been moving in a different direction over the last three years, becoming a \u201cconglomeration\u201d of 1960s garage rock that is both \u201cheavier\u201d and \u201cdarker.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New York Rifles are a unique band that has gone through many transformations and lineup changes over its six-year existence, and has currently settled on a core lineup within those last three years. Young sings and plays guitar, Jamie Gould plays bass, and Nate James takes on drums.<\/p>\n
Young first put New York Rifles together six years ago, but a love triangle caused that incarnation of the band to fall apart. After giving up on the band, fate intervened in the form of the Empty Records label, whose producers called Young literally one week after the breakup to see if he had anything recorded. That call inspired him to give it a second go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sent over a recording we had made and they liked it,\u201d Young said. \u201cI put the band back together, but it took about a year to get things rolling again because I kind of just pieced together a band with friends that were just helping out temporarily.\u201d That initial recording got a lot of airplay on college radio, and the Young kept searching for permanent members.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally we settled on the current lineup about three years ago,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m big on meeting people for the first time and playing together, because when you play together with friends you kind of already have an established relationship of how you work with each other. \u2026 When you meet people with the idea of getting a band together, you lay out how you\u2019ll work together from the ground floor up.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Young and his band mates there are few things in life that make more sense than the intoxicating feeling they get when performing onstage in front of an energetic crowd of music lovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing on stage for 45 minutes is where I feel the most comfortable, and maybe it just has to do with having control over what\u2019s happening,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if you\u2019re having a train wreck of a night up on stage you\u2019re still in control of the train wreck, whereas you\u2019re not always in control of the things that happen to you in your everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n