the border cops

There are some in the music community that subscribe to a belief that members of a rock band should carry themselves so as to appear to be gods, or at the very least above their audience—be it in fashion, attitude, behavior and social status. Otherwise, they don't deserve to be called rock stars.

The Border Cops are not that band. If that's a problem for you, leave. Now. Take a hike. Beat it. Scram.

Still here? Then welcome—we're happy to have you. We’re a band from New York City that wants everyone to have a good time—we don't care if you're not hot, have only one leg or can't afford $200 jeans. Why? Because we're not gonna get signed anyway, and life's too short to be a dick. And even if we do get signed, we'll still be dicks. Wait, that came out wrong...ah, screw it; we'll edit it later.

The Border Cops actually arose from the ashes of Mrs. Grundy in 2005. Grundy rhythm guitarist Kurt Mueller had been writing three-minute pop confections in his spare time and managed to record, with the help of producer Adam Parness, about a dozen of them, playing every instrument and doing all the singing. In June, he put together a band to perform his songs live — Mrs. Grundy’s Matt Scharfglass and Evan Parness on bass and drums respectively, Adam on lead guitar and Kristian (just Kristian) on rhythm guitar, with Kurt stepping out front. His intention was to do three shows, get the “frontman” thing out of his system, break up the project and go back to being Mrs. Grundy’s guitarist. What he and the rest of us didn’t count on, though, was the camaraderie, good humor and explosive chemistry that were created from this union. We played our third Border Cops gig — an outdoor show on a beautiful day in Battery Park City that saw the crowd growing with each song—and realized that this thing was too much fun to put to rest.

After a few drunken band meetings, we assessed what we had in our arsenal: two strong songwriters (Matt and Kurt), two top-notch engineers/producers/musicians/amateur comedians (Adam and Evan), a charismatic frontman and talented songwriter/arranger who happens to have sharp business acumen (Kurt) and a solid, no-bullshit rhythm guitarist who could act as our bodyguard (the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Kristian), as well as a shared warped sense of humor and immense mutual respect for each other’s abilities. A decision was made to add Matt’s hefty catalog of Mrs. Grundy songs to our set, and a collective middle finger was cocked menacingly in the face of what is considered cool in today’s musical climate.

What was broken about all our previous bands is now fixed; the Border Cops are here.

We’re out to bring back everything that was great about hard rock from years past, while embracing all that is good about where rock is heading today. Punk, power-pop, ‘80s New Wave and even metal are our sacred cows, and we strive to incorporate all of these styles and textures into our music, only with more cowbell. If you have a tight-fitting blazer and an ironic mullet and you listen to the Arctic Monkeys, this aesthetic will probably make you cringe.

Well, that’s your problem, champ.

Not ours.