NOISE

So what brought you to Las Vegas?

I married somebody I'm no longer married to, and she lives there, as does my 5-year-old daughter. Also, at the time I moved there we were getting our first big checks in the mail and I kinda liked the idea of the no-state tax. It just seemed like a good deal. And then I just grew to really love it there. It has a small community vibe to me and I like that. I just bought a condo in Chicago and that's kinda my big city rock 'n' roll life there. And Vegas, which sounds strange to people who don't live there, is where I go for my quiet, at-home life. I live in Summerlin, in a nice quiet neighborhood, that's where I go to spend time with my daughter and relax. I feel like a normal guy living there.

You've also lived in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, cities with long-established local music scenes. How do you feel Vegas stacks up?

I didn't even know Vegas had a music scene the first few years that I lived there. I was just busy in my own little bubble traveling around the world with Train. But just recently, the band took a year off to write our For Me It's You record, and during that time off I checked out the local music scene a little bit. I like what's happening in Vegas, and I think the industry is paying attention. I stumbled onto this local band called Skypool. They're young guys—all right around 20 years old—and they've got a ways to go, but I see potential there. They remind me of us at our early stages: hungry, living in the same house, writing music all night, practicing all day in their living room, playing around town quite a bit. I spent some time off kinda whipping some of their songs into shape.

I keep telling them just stay together, be patient and keep writing music, and I think they'll have a shot.

Is is tricky being in a different location from your bandmates?

Our bass player and keyboard player live in Atlanta. Our drummer lives in Encinitas, California, and our singer has a house in Seattle and a house in Erie, Pennsylvania, where his children live. But we spend most of our time together, when we're on the road or doing press. Then, if we get a week or a month off everybody splits up and heads to their corners. It was a little tricky when we were writing the record last year, but not really. Everybody writes on their own at home and then we get together once every few months and spend a week or two as a band writing music in Atlanta. So it doesn't really matter where you live.

Train's ballads have been its highest-charting singles. Would you prefer if the band was better known for its more rocking stuff?

Yeah, unfortunately I think there's a whole side of our band that a lot of people don't know about. People hear songs like "Calling All Angels" and "Drops of Jupiter" on the radio, so they go out and buy the record and go, "Oh, and these guys can also do rock." But maybe there's this whole untapped audience out there that isn't buying our records because we aren't putting the rock on the radio. So there's a little bit of us that would like to have a rock radio song out there. Maybe there will be with this current record. The first single is another rock ballad, "Cab," but we've got a few more songs they're considering for release, and some of them are rock tunes.

Jimstafford.com takes surfers to the site for Jim Stafford, the comic singer who performs in Vegas from time to time. Are you aware of him?

I knew of him when I was a kid growing up; he had that song "(I Don't Like) Spiders and Snakes," and he also had a TV show when I was a kid. Once I got out of high school and moved to Hollywood and started being very serious about the music, I knew that I couldn't be Jim Stafford. I had to either change my name completely or alter it a little bit. So he's partly the reason I went with Jimmy.

Nine Inch Nails with Saul Williams     
Where: Aladdin Theatre for Performing Arts.


When: April 1, 8 p.m.      
Price: $40.      
Info: 785-5055.

Finnish metal titans Children of Bodom deliver another precision hit to the sternum with their fifth album. With tight arrangements, aggressive vocals and deft guitar and keyboard solos, it's effective and brutal, even if it doesn't sound any different from their last album (it does have a nifty Ramones cover, though).

This is metal for indie rockers, hyped by critics but actually rather boring to listen to. Produced by lo-fi legend Steve Albini, Blessed Black Wings features seven-minute sludge-metal dirges, the occasional decent guitar solo and nine songs that run together into one big mush.

On Epitaph album No. 2, the Los Angeles quartet changes with the times, transitioning from passable screamo to unexceptional screamo-prog. Fans of the Mars Volta and Coheed and Cambria might dig Heroine, but they'll probably agree those bands do it better.

Richard Butler has always sung about loneliness and alienation, but The Psychedelic Furs wrapped his voice in guitars (early on) and keyboards (later). So, despite the bed of keyboards, it is the nakedness and simplicity that Butler and multi-instrumentalist Jon Carin create on the singer's first solo album that are so striking. Butler's voice remains unmistakable, yet no one would accuse this somber music of resembling his classic '80s band.