Steel Train

Much like the Southern rock revivalists My Morning Jacket and Kings of Leon, Steel Train apply a post-punk lens to the vintage sounds of 1970s album-oriented rock. The group took its name from a Bob Marley song when singer Scott Irby-Ranniar and guitarist Jack Antonoff launched Steel Train in 1999 as a busking duo on the streets of New York, two years after Irby-Ranniar created the role of Young Simba in the Broadway production of The Lion King. Second guitarist Matthew Goldman, bassist Evan Winiker, and drummer Matthias Gruber soon completed the five-piece lineup, which landed a deal with Drive Thru Records in 2002 and issued its first EP, For You My Dear, early the following year. Also in 2003 came the concept EP 1969, whose six tracks revisited songs originally released that year by the Jackson 5, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bob Marley, David Bowie, the Beatles, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The band’s debut full-length, Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun, arrived in 2005 and included several numbers reflecting the end of Antonoff’s relationship with actress Scarlett Johansson. Once the supporting tour concluded, Goldman and Gruber departed, making room for guitarist Daniel Silbert and drummer Jon Shiffman. The revised lineup’s first release, the band’s second album Trampoline, came out in October 2007.