Premiere: The Rich Hands, “Teenager”

With San Antonio making a bid for their rightful place in the pantheon of cities with thriving independent music scenes; let The Rich Hands sweep you off your feet with the debut of their young-and in love rocking romance video for, "Teenager". A low-budget, wide angle lens home performance session capture; watch the fast and hormonal riffs from frontman Cody Mauser, Matt Gonzalez and Nick Ivarra get spliced with vintage stock images by director Ryan Smith that brings the band's energy back to the days when "Leave it Beaver" was king. Following up last year's album Dreamers, The Rich Hands are preparing the release of their new LP, Out of My Head for release May 6 from Fountain Records and Burger Records (on cassette) after a slew of SxSW dates and a scheduled Treefort Fest appearance.

Prom dances, awkward phone chord tethered times, soda jerks, pep squads, and classroom biology studies are sewn into Cody, Matt and Nicks' sound. With the live sequences from The Rich Hands shot in b/w like the found 50s footage, the video teleports the San Antonio sounds to a different time. The visual recipe further adds to the modern world era of audio obsession that Mauser, Gonzalez and Ivarra mine in order to discover new gold in tyesterday's vintage guitar wax. The Rich Hands are the rad band that you wish was featured in the faded pictures of ballroom bands displayed in the embarassing photo albums of your grandparents and parents when they were once young, dumb, ambivalent, and in love.

We caught up yesterday with The Rich Hands' Cody Mauser to learn more about their upcoming album, Out of My Head, their new single "Teenager", and more, kicking it off with thoughts on their hometown scene of San Antonio.

Been a lot of action happening around San Antonio these days, how do you all feel about your local scene?

The local scene is definitely growing I feel like in the past two years it's actually grown a lot. We try everything we can to put together fun shows and we try to get a little bit of everything so the music can appeal to everyone! Who doesn't like have a good time?!

What did you all learn from making your first full length, The Dreamers, and what kind of Southwest garage hedonism should we expect on Out of My Head?

Dreamers was a big learning experience for us in a lot of ways. It was the first record any of us had ever recorded in any band we've been in. Looking back on the record and listening to the songs I hear parts that could totally be fixed or parts that could be added but in the end I wouldn't change a thing about it. It's a good first record and I think we're all pretty proud of it. Our new record Out of My Head is bigger than us that's exactly what we wanted. The sound is huge we sound like a five piece band or something! Expect a heavier sound still with classic pop sensibility but with our twist!

Like Shuggie Otis's classic song, the Stones' classic album of a similar title, what is the artist obsession and experiential fixation on getting out of one's own head?

I think there's so many things going on in ones head and I think this album is in fact out of my head because it's different from the last album! It's a progression! But overall I think being out of your head makes for good music. That's just the way it goes! Ha.

What is The Rich Hands way of penning quick, effective numbers like, "Teenager"?

Easy! Melody/Chorus is always first! With "Teenager" I wanted something catchy and quick and easy to sing along too! That always works good for us!

Was the Ryan Smith b/w video a way to distill a performance from The Rich Hands that translates that full experience for the listener?

Definitely! He did a great job capturing us having fun and doing what we all love! Come to a show and expect to have a good time! That's what it's all about!

Your upcoming joint release has two good homes with Fountain and Burger Records. What are some of your favorite releases from these imprints respectively?

Well first off the whole Fountain family is great, it's small but awesome! Burger puts out so many good bands it's hard to pinpoint but to name a few: Natural Child, Froth, Wyatt Blair, Dead Ghosts, Warm Soda!

The Rich Hands new album, Out Of My Head will be available May 6 on Fountain Records and on cassette from Burger Records.

Keep up with The Rich Hands in SxSW and beyond via the dates on the following flyer: