Briana Layon & The Boys

...Briana Layon & the Boys – Cut My Man
The dark metal/powerpop rockers open the song with an icy, watery guitar lead over a sketchy, muted riff, frontwoman Layon joining in the ominous ambience and then rising toward murderous rage, airing out her wounded low range and in the process channeling the Sometime Boys‘ Sarah Mucho. They take it out as a waltzing danse macabre. From their album Touch & Go. Listen here... - New York Music Daily

Best Rock Album: "...Hard rock band Briana Layon & The Boys released an ass-kicking album titled Touch and Go that, at times, makes us want to headbang, and throw furniture..." - Arena.com

Briana Layon & The Boys Have Attitude In Abundance
By Adam Bernard

Briana Layon experienced her indoctrination into NYC’s hard rock scene very early on, as she notes, “My very first show, I had a girl, I’m not sure what was going on with her, I think she was on some sort of drug, but she threw a wicker chair at me.”

That show, which took place four years ago, was at the Brooklyn venue 169 Bar, where the performers are on the same level as the crowd. Layon’s reaction to the flying piece of furniture would turn out to be a defining moment for her.

She remembers thinking, “I’m either gonna have to own this, like run the show here, or play with her.” Layon chose to focus on the former. “I’d rather just run the show, and be able to sing, and let her enjoy that, so I just kicked the chair back at her, and I was like ‘what the fuck!’ and kept singing, trying to play with her, but also asserting my authority, because I have the microphone. You gotta do that sometimes.”

The journey to that moment on stage, and Layon’s ability to take charge, began in Oklahoma, where she grew up infatuated with NYC from the time she first visited the city at the age of eight. Her initial trip was to audition for a role in Annie Warbucks, the Off-Broadway sequel to Annie.

“It shut down the week after my audition,” Layon says with a laugh. “The joke was I singlehandedly brought it down.”

The trip may have been a quick one, but it was enough to hook Layon, who from that point on knew where she wanted to end up. It was in stark contrast to many of her peers, as she notes, “My very best friend boasted she never applied above the Mason-Dixon line for anywhere for college.”

Even with her love of NYC, Layon still credits her Oklahoma community for where she is today. “Everyone around me was extremely supportive,” she says, “and not just people I know, but in the community the arts are definitely appreciated, and without that I don’t think I would have ever been able to do any of this.”



Layon made the move to NYC ten years ago, went to an arts school, and began writing music on her own. Fast forwarding to the present, she and her band, Briana Layon & The Boys, have just released their full length debut, Touch & Go.

Touch & Go is inspired by a breakup Layon experienced a number of years ago, but it wasn’t just the breakup that affected her, it was what was said during the breakup. “The guy, to be perfectly candid, cheated on me with another musician,” she explains, “I remember being like, ‘Why do you like her?’ And her was like, ‘Cuz she’s a musician.’ I was like, ‘First off, what kind of response is that, but second, I’m a musician.’ And he was like, ‘She’s a real musician.’”

The words hit like a punch to the stomach, but rather than crumple under them, Layon dusted herself off, and stood tall. “I was like, well, screw this, I don’t need him. I don’t need anybody to tell me I’m a musician.”

After that it didn’t take long for the music to begin to flow out of her.

“I wrote like 20 songs, and just put them on Facebook,” she remembers. Those songs were filled with attitude as she drew inspiration from the likes of Jinx Dawson from Coven, and Cherie Currie from The Runaways. “They both have nice voices,” she says of the two rock vocalists, “but they also drive extremely hard with their voices, and you can feel this like hanging tension in the air.”

For Layon, it’s a perfect match, as she explains, “The head banging, or the yelling, or the screaming, stuff like that, along with the singing, I think it’s pretty vital to my music.”



It was at around this time that Layon met guitarist Chris DiBerardino, and the two mutually honed each other’s styles. “Any of the songs that I had written, he put his magic Chris touch on, and any of the stuff he brought, I played with some melodies.”

After rotating a few other members in and out of the group, Layon and DiBerardino linked up with bassist Lloyd Kikoler, and drummer Dan Bouley to finalize the lineup of “Boys.”

While working on Touch & Go, the emotions of the bad breakup were still fresh in Layon’s mind, and she focused in on them. “There was a lot of anger from that situation,” she remembers, “and it’s fun to make angry music. Even though we [also] have some soul stuff on the album, slower tunes, which are also really fun to me, just because I like to sing, and it’s fun to have these opportunities to really belt it out.”

More than just an emotional release, Layon says the album has a deeper meaning to her past the breakup it’s about. “I realized that I completely had lost myself in someone,” she explains, “so this music was a way for me to figure out how to come back to myself. The lyrics aren’t literally about that, but that’s where that rage, and that vulnerability, and all that is from, because that’s part of who I am, and I had stuffed that all down.”

This unwrapping of herself is also why she named the album Touch & Go. “Being yourself can be a touch and go experience,” she explains, “and trying to be with someone else that thinks about them[selves], or has a lot of drama about them, it’s always touch and go as for finding yourself in that balance.”

Briana Layon has found herself, and with her Boys by her side, the fearless rocker is now ready for anything, even the occasional bad boyfriend, or flying chair. - Arena.com

Pedico Plays ‘Party Tennis,' More NYC Indie Music News
Created by Adam Bernard

...Sometimes a rock band will have a female lead singer to add a slightly delicate, feminine, touch to things. This is not the case with Briana Layon & The Boys. On the Brooklyn band's full-length debut album, Touch and Go, Layon proves she can not only kick just as much ass at the boys, it seems as though she probably inspires much of that ass kicking.

With powerful vocals, and an equally powerful personality to match, Layon and her boys have been making a name for themselves with their live performances for quite some time. With Touch and Go they've captured their frenetic nature on record, and are lyrically focusing on, according to the band, "The out of control side of love."

Get out of control to the album's first track, "All Yours," and hear why Briana Layon & The Boys routinely pack sweaty Brooklyn venues. - Arena.com

MUSIC RECAP 8.12
By Greg Mania

...It’s a good week for the notorious NYC rock n’roll scene. Beloved band Briana Layon and the Boys’ newly released studio effort Touch and Go can be streamed here and will be available for purchase on iTunes on August 18th.

Tracks like ‘All Yours’ and ‘Rope’ make you feel like a high school sophomore who recently discovered that things happen after curfew. Check out a full review from New York Music Daily here! - Creem Magazine

Briana Layon & the Boys Bring Their Menacing, Heavy Intensity to Arlene’s
by delarue

Briana Layon’s bio at her web page compares her to both the Runaways’ Cherie Currie and Jinx Dawson of Coven, which is ok for starters, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The trouble with the current crop of women with big voices – and Layon has an epic one – is that so many of them are American Idol-ing it, all show, no substance, one watered-down gospel riff after another. Or even worse, they do the dorky SING-song-EY her-KY-jer-KY up-AND-down Tourette’s thing that spewed out from emo into the dogshit pile of Disney autotune pop. Briana Layon doesn’t go for that – it seems she’d rather be her own person. Which is why she’s not on American Idol. Briana Layon & the Boys, her smart, ferocious, blues and metal-infused heavy rock band, have a killer album, Touch and Go streaming at Bandcamp and a show at 7 PM on August 20 at Arlene’s for $5.

What’s coolest about the album is that a lot of these songs are long, with plenty of room for Layon to hit a bitter, gale-force wail and hang there, or for brilliant lead guitarist Chris DiBerardino to scorch the earth with a deep arsenal of stylistic assaults. The opening track is All Yours, a catchy three-minute bluesmetal tune, Layon bringing to mind two other distinctive, charismatic frontwomen, Spanking Charlene‘s Charlene McPherson and then Ann Wilson of Heart, rising to a searing wail at the end. The title track has DiBerardino delivering vamping, clustering early 70s riffage with a hint of funk and some cool, evilly chromatic Buck Dharma glissandos.

Pistolero could be a standout track from the first couple of AC/DC records, bassist Josh Castellano’s chords lurking at the bottom with solid drummer Vlad Hancu, who trades off with DiBerardino on the chorus. Teach Me is unexpectedly subtle, DiBerardino channeling Keith Richards with his catchy chords on the verse and then going to an Angus Young growl on the chorus, Castellano delivering a rare snappy bass solo that doesn’t suck.

Cut My Man opens with an icy, watery lead over a sketchy, muted riff, Layon joining in the ominous ambience and then rising toward murderous rage, airing out her wounded low range and in the process channeling the Sometime Boys‘ Sarah Mucho. They take it out as a waltzing danse macabre – this is just plain awesome, one of the best songs of the year.

Playing Dead is a menacingly elegant noir soul ballad in the Clairy Browne vein, Layon rising from an aptly ghostly purr to a roaring peak. Rope blends sludgy Spanking Charlene-style punk and fuzzy early 70s style metal riffage – ironically, it’s as close to “R&B” as Layon gets here. Sticky Wicket (meaning tight spot, a term taken from cricket, the British empire’s ancestor to baseball) is the closest thing to funkmetal here, DiBerardino capping it off with a gritty wah solo.

Castellano’s pitchblende Geezer Butler lines anchor a sweet, vintage Iron Maiden-style hook on Vanagloria – it would make a good three-minute-thirty track from Number of the Beast. Tell Me I’m Good blends jaunty flamencoesque flourishes from DiBerardino, a dancing pulse from the bass and Layon channeling her usual luridness.

Dear Friend starts out as a 6/8 soul ballad with organ lurking in the background, Layon putting a teens update on pensive Vera Beren-style theatrics – her shivery, low-key outro is just as chilling as her fullscale wail. The album peaks out with Looks Like Rain, which is not the Grateful Dead song but an eerily atmospheric art-metal piece that if you listen very closely sounds suspiciously like it might have had another life as a trip-hop pop song. It’s amazing what a tricky time signature and a great band can do for a tune. - New York Music Daily

The Alternet Root blog, Top 30 Americana Roots Female Vocalist list, while a great list- it got me thinking about what my top picks would be right now. So here, in no particular order, are the ladies in my ear right now. - Popa's Tunes

Briana Layon & The Boys + The Bowery Riots + Activist Dictators

Industry City Distillery, NY

It was Labor Day in The States this past weekend and what better way to celebrate 3 days off than with a Brooklyn rooftop party! And not just any old Brooklyn rooftop party – more like a party atop a vodka distillery with a view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, $3 strong-as-an-ox vodka punch, beetroot shots (?!), gourmet sausage sandwiches, over 100 pounds of home made sauerkraut AND rock bands to boot! It was a glorious day put on by the good folk at Industry City Distillery and the following acts stole the stage on what was to be a Sunday evening of epic proportions.
Briana Layon & The Boys combine almost every element of rock when they come together. Rock, punk, country, blues, metal – Briana and the Boys have them all tied up in a neat little bow. Raised in Oklahoma the lady herself is a stellar front woman with strong vocals and an even stronger stage presence, leading the band – Chris DiBerardino (guitar), Mick Maverick (Bass), and Dan Bouley (drums) – through a steady procession of bone-thumping riffs, hammering drums and rumbling bass. Their heavy sound suited the open, power-line laden ICD rooftop well. Switching to their slower paced tunes Briana’s voice takes on a smooth and salty tone smoothing over the low bluesy chords emanating from the Boys. A great little rock’n’roll act, and it’s also nice to see a strong woman up front for a change. Stand out tracks include “The Rope” and “Playing Dead”, both available on their current EP The Rope. - SF Media

Much like my previous music post, there's nothing that makes me smile more than hearing new jams from my friends. They go from my inbox to iPod faster than you can say MittRomneySucksABagofBurningDongs. The latest songs I've been the lucky recipient of were sent from my friends Briana Layon & The Boys, a heavy rock n'roll band comprised of three dudes appropriately dawning long hair and an eccentric front woman who storms the stage as audiences gaze in admiration and panic.

I was fortunate enough to hear a sneak peek of Briana Layon & The Boys' highly anticipated single "All Yours" along with a few other tracks entitled "Playing Dead" and "Rope" off their upcoming album Blood Words. It's like the sounds of all my favorite bands like The Runaways permeating through my speakers, rejuvenating the allegedly dead spirit of rock n'roll. The recently released song "All Yours" is a coy, playful head banger, fueled with infectious guitar riffs that's sure to be a crowd pleaser when performed live. "Playing Dead" is a powerful, blues based rock n'roll track equipped with a soulful vibrato with nods to Janis Joplin. If you're not listening to it with a glass of Jameson in your hand and a cigarette in your mouth, your'e doing it wrong. "Rope" is a song that makes you feel like you're a high school sophomore who just discovered things happen after curfew.

Capturing the spirit of Courtney Love and Cherie Currie, bold front woman Briana Layon packs a punch on stage. Listeners can't help but want to get up and head bang while this fiery rockstar saunters on stage adorned in ostentatious attire whipping her luscious blonde locks. Classically trained, her versatile vocal range goes from belting out her band's notorious melodic vocal lines to sultry blues records. Sonically reminiscent to AC/DC, The Runaways, Wolfmother, and Hole, this band injects a dose of badassery and rowdiness into the frivolous, overproduced music scene. - Le Cabaret de Mania