The Strains bring gritty street rock to Blind Bob’s on Halloween

The Strains will be performing Oct. 31 for Blind Bob’s Halloween show, alongside Frank Meyer (Long Beach punk) and Southbound Beretta (Indianapolis hard rock).

Between 2016 and 2018 in Detroit, a retired Paul Grace Smith started The Strains with a couple of guys who worked at Chrysler. The band started to pick up steam almost by accident, releasing its debut record in 2022, which was a live recording of a rehearsal at the beginning of lockdown.

After a European tour and a Midwest tour, the lineup needed a jostling, since some of the members were happy playing in Detroit. Through a series of kismet moments, Paul assembled The Strains’ current lineup: Jamy, Gretta, Gretta’s son Kellen Mutter on bass, and a stable of three drummers (but not all three at once).

“I had no intention of this really becoming anything. But when you see a winning team starting to coalesce, it kind of happens on its own,” Paul said. “People will recuse themselves because they see they’re blocking it, or they’ll recuse themselves because they can’t handle what’s coming.”

Gretta’s band Summer Crush recorded its debut record at Paul’s Detroit studio, Burning Ear Studios. She also temporarily ran the merch table for Paul’s old band, Dumbell. Eventually, she was invited on stage to play some of her songs, which turned into her playing all of the songs.

In The Strains, more is more. Three guitars, three distinct parts — not The Eagles or Foo Fighters (to Jamy’s delight) — but an aggressive, punk-infused rock ‘n’ roll band by way of DEVO and The B-52s, if they wore all black and were slightly less bizarre. The guitar trio can hit these weird Appalachian harmonies mixed into interesting punk rock songs with good hooks. The current lineup, as Paul described it, “caught lightning in a bottle.”

In every song, someone plays the pure rhythm. Or maybe two will, with one playing open chords. The third does what the third does, and sometimes plays a fourth part, too. The result is a blur of intersecting riffs, passing one another like ships in the night. The guitarists talk of juxtaposing one and a half licks, which only seems possible with mutated, seven- or eight-fingered hands.

Classical music does it. Who says rock ‘n’ roll can’t do the same?

The Strains’ 2025 seven-inch, “Running The Lines” / “Checkin’ Out,” was engineered by Paul. The songs nod to New York Dolls by way of KISS. But no matter how heavy and biting the music gets, a pop hook always rears its head somewhere. As Paul said: if you got no hook, you got no song.

“Part of the angst is caused by the American way,” Paul said. “We’re pushed to an extreme to survive here in the States. It’s a constant treadmill. Detroit has grit. Dayton has grit. These industrial towns… there’s a hard edge to them. Maybe it’s the blue-collar work ethic of these cities bleeding over into the music subconsciously.”

Its next LP, “Queen Death,” will be released on Dead Beat Records. There’s no release date yet.

But with the bandleader in Detroit, three members in Dayton, a U.S. drummer up near Lake Superior, and another in Europe, what is it that makes this geographically-challenged lineup worth the constant oil changes and road miles?

“There’s a long-term brotherhood and sisterhood in this case,” Paul said. “It’s not like we’re trying to make it, but I think that we have something to offer. It’s a brief second in any band’s career where they’re at the pinnacle of what they’re doing. And I think with this constellation of people, we’re at the pinnacle of our prowess.”

The interconnectivity of the band members’ histories is too complex to unpack here, but the friendships are deep and storied.

“I don’t see it ever happening like that when you’re younger,” Jamy said, “because you don’t have the threads to get intermingled.”

They converge when it’s time to rock. Sometimes, that’s in the morning.

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