Why the Great Gallop?

The Davenports are an indie pop-rock band from Brooklyn, helmed by Scott Klass and featuring Tommy Borscheid, Angela Webster and Karyn LeSuer. Building on the pop craft of their two previous critically acclaimed records-Speaking of The Davenports and Hi-tech Lowlife-The Davenports' new record, Why the Great Gallop, sets tales of love, lust, mean, money-dangling mothers, superstitious panic attacks and the like to a torrent of guitar-driven, melodic rock. After a string of pop projects, including playing alongside Chris Collingwood in the Fountains of Wayne frontman's previous band, songwriter Scott Klass conceived of The Davenports in 2000 as an excuse to write a disturbing band biography, chock full of details about musicians growing up on Funyuns out of the backs of their Pacers. Being that he neither had a band, nor knew anyone like that, Klass decided to make The Davenports a vehicle for melodic, quirky pop music instead. In addition to gathering a core set of players with distinguished pedigrees-Tommy Borscheid (Rhett Miller, The Honeydogs), Angela Webster (Rhett Miller), and Thomas Ward-Klass brought friends into The Davenports to create what amounted to a revolving lineup of downtown NYC luminaries, including, among others: Danny Weinkauf and Dan Miller (They Might Be Giants), Todd Foulsham (Candy Butchers), Sam McIlvain (Madeleine Peyroux), Claudia Chopek (Springsteen, Moby), Garo Yellin (The Ordinaires, Pere Ubu), Eleanor Norton (Shakira, Beyonce), Rob Draghi (Dorie Colangelo) and Cheri Leone (Trouble Dolls). Well-known for "Five Steps," the theme song to A&E's Emmy-nominated Intervention, The Davenports have licensed numerous songs to MTV, Comedy Central, and the Starz network. "Five Steps" was also featured on a recent episode of South Park, "Crippled Summer." Why the Great Gallop was co-produced by Klass and Charles Newman (Magnetic Fields, AM, Gospel Music, Soko). The record was recorded at One East Studios and Mother West Studio in NYC. The Davenports' pop is a tight weave of novel, wistful melody and vivid, sometimes skewed storytelling. As stated by Kevin Matthews on MTV Asia, "Klass is able to touch hearts and nerves by marrying words and music in a seamless construct."