Shiny Toy Guns

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• Genre: Synth Pop
• Hometown: Los Angeles

About

Los Angeles' Shiny Toy Guns are part of a new wave of electropop acts, like Cut Copy and She Wants Revenge, updating classic '80s pop with touches of emo and modern rock. Founded in 2002 by keyboardist Jeremy Dawson and vocalist/guitarist Chad Petree -- former bandmates from the Shawnee, Okla., scene -- they rounded out the lineup in 2004 with drummer Mikey Martin and vocalist Carah Faye Charnow. An early MySpace success story, they toured the U.S. in 2005 in support of their debut album, We Are Pilots, initially released on Stormwest International. Perhaps the landing gear wasn't working, because later that year Shiny Toy Guns re-recorded the album, this time for SideCho Records. But listeners along for the ride didn't unbuckle their seatbelts until 2006, when the band once again redid the album for its major-label debut on Universal. Though it only climbed to No. 90 on the Billboard 200, the album earned them a Grammy nomination for Best Electronic/Dance Album and landed three songs -- including "Le Disko," a sassy blast of punk-spirited electro -- in the upper quarter of Billboard's Modern Rock charts.

- Philip Sherburne