SXSW 2012

After a two and a half year break, the San Francisco guitar-drum duo TWO GALLANTS began touring again which took them across North America, through Europe and even to East Asia for their first ever shows in South Korea and China. The well needed time off came after 6 years of incessant touring and the release of 3 full length studio albums and an acoustic EP. The band consists of childhood friends Tyson Vogel and Adam Stephens who met on their elementary school playground at the age of 5. Despite an initial disagreement and ensuing scuffle over the supremacy of White Lion vs. White Snake, the two have been best friends ever since. They have been playing music together in some capacity since 1994, when their parents made the mistake of giving them both electric guitars for Christmas. Around 2002, the two college dropouts found themselves with some time on their hands and silence to kill; and so with an acoustic guitar and a trap set they formed TWO GALLANTS in the basement of the Vogel residence. In an ongoing unspoken competition to out do one another, the intervening years have seen the two-piece increase their volume and gear ten-fold. The bands' sound is somewhat of a syncretism of American old-timey roots music with the grunge and east bay punk of Tyson and Adam's formative years. In the two years since, both have released solo material under The Devotionals and Adam Haworth Stephens, respectively. Now with a new batch of songs in hand TWO GALLANTS are getting back to the haranguing strident noise that fuelled them across the world and a new album is in the works.