Australian rockers The Rubens landed a big hit on their own country's charts last year with their ridiculously catchy, gritty and mournful blues-soul single, My Gun. The track was voted the 10th-most popular song in the Triple J Hottest 100 and propelled the band's self-titled debut album to gold status.
The band is composed of brothers Sam, Elliot and Zac Margin (vocals/guitar, keys and lead guitar, respectively), along with drummer Scott Baldwin. Originally, The Rubens operated as a four piece sans bassist, but as Sam explained to MusicRadar during a recent visit to New York City, "We tried doing the no-bassist thing, kind of like The Doors did. The bottom line is, they were great at it; we sucked at it."
Halfway into the recording of their David Kahne-produced first LP, the band added bassist Will Zeglis, who has now become a full-time Ruben. We got the whole lot of them to perform an acoustic version of MY Gun, which will be featured on the worldwide release of the album later this year.
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Joe is a freelance journalist who has, over the past few decades, interviewed hundreds of guitarists for Guitar World, Guitar Player, MusicRadar and Classic Rock. He is also a former editor of Guitar World, contributing writer for Guitar Aficionado and VP of A&R for Island Records. He’s an enthusiastic guitarist, but he’s nowhere near the likes of the people he interviews. Surprisingly, his skills are more suited to the drums. If you need a drummer for your Beatles tribute band, look him up.
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