Frontman Matthew Hitt initially got a job as a guitar teacher here in the States, but after spending some time going back and forth, he realized he was getting bored with Britain.

"Well not bored," Hitt told Radio.com, correcting himself. "I just sort of fell out with it for a bit. I don't know, New York seemed more exciting to me�I would go out all the time. I basically went out every night for the first six months I lived here. And I met [the band members] out. It was all oddly easy."

Though they met in a bar, the band-Hitt, Jack Ridley III, Erik Lee Snyder, and Lakis E. Pavlou-actually prides itself on having a work ethic rarely matched in the rock world.

"Most of the lads I'd meet were all talk, no trousers. Things would never materialize," Hitt recalls. "Whereas these guys were like, 'Alright, what time are we meeting up?' Willingness to work was the main reason [we clicked]."

With their recently released self-titled debut, Drowners have created one of those debut albums-like the Libertines and the Strokes before them-that rockists love to love. One part jangly guitar riffs � la The Smiths and one part disheveled punk, the record is a testament to the band's transatlantic influences.