Adrian Barrera has never viewed himself as part of rock’s mainstream.
“We never needed to be set out from the pack because the pack never wanted us in the first place,” he said.
Barrera’s southern/classic rock-influenced band, The HISS, is embarking on its first major U.S. tour after finding success in Europe. It will be playing a show Friday at Little Brothers.
Barrera described the HISS’ influences as “pretty standard,” including bands like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground, along with old soul music and the Atlanta music scene.
“When we lived in Atlanta, we absorbed a lot of contemporary R&B and rap,” he said.
One of the biggest influences on Barrera’s work is the Alejandro Jordorowsky film “El Topo,” which supplied the title for the band’s album “Panic Movement.”
“The imagery and symbolism represent music to me,” he said. “When writing songs, there’s often an image in my head.”
Barrera said the band tries to make music that mixes the fun of energetic traditional rock with intelligent lyrics.
“When we started making this record, we decided to make it respecting the audience’s intelligence,” Barrera said. “We tried to make it fun, but a little bit of thinking, too.”
Barrera said he believes while the trend toward more traditional rock has been a good thing, it has its down side as well.
“A lot of the music from the last few years has been exiting, but there has also been a lot of note-for-note revivalism,” he said.
Barrera says his band is “separate from the pack” through its sense of individual identity.
“We have really strong concept of who we are,” he said.
The HISS got its start in the late ’90s in Florida while several of its members were attending college. Most of the lineup gathered over a short period of time. After the members moved to Atlanta, the group landed a bass player that clicked, completing the band.
Its name came from drummer, Todd Gapin, reading a review.
“He was reading a music review, and it was describing a drum line as boom boom hiss, boom boom hiss,” Barrera said.
Eventually the band went to Europe at the request of its label.
“We had built up a good amount of popularity back home, and then we got caught up in a whirlwind,” he said.
Reaction to the band in England was extremely positive.
“We received immediate support,” Barrera said.
The HISS will be opening for Electric Six at its concert Friday. Playing with the band has been a positive experience for The HISS and has helped them gain new fans, Barrera said.
“They have very open-minded fans,” he said. “We’ve picked up a lot of new people in our audiences.”
The band will continue its tour and then begin work on its next album.
“We want to stay ahead of the curve,” Barrera said.
