“Authentic” is a word folks seem to like to use when talking about Austin-based Americana act The Strange Boys. It’s an apt choice, but an odd one, considering it implies that there is some gold-standard predecessor to evaluate them by. In fact, one of the most compelling things about The Strange Boys is their weaving together of genres, running the gamut from R&B to country. In the process, they create a marriage of garage rock, rockabilly and vintage country that, while it isn’t a bona fide specimen of any particular genre, winds up sounding like an awfully authentic artistic expression, born of the members’ mélange of influences.

“Those are our favorite kinds of music to listen to, so naturally they just come together when we play and write,” explains frontman Ryan Sambol. “They go pretty well together; all of them have soul.”

Soul, then, is no small part of what makes The Strange Boys appealing, owing to their soulful interpretations of classic American musical styles and Sambol’s heartfelt lyrics. Infused with quiet musing, even when they sound like rollicking soundtracks to nights at the pool hall, Sambol’s tunes explore such themes as why it might make him happy to hear his friends having sex in the next room ("My friends are having sex in the other room/ Being quiet as they can so as not to be rude/ I smile and fall asleep on the couch so easily/ ‘Cause they love each other, and for some reason that pleases me") or mulling over the inescapability of the present in a number of ways on The Strange Boys’ latest release, Live Music (“live,” in this case, rhyming with “give,” not “jive).

The emphasis on message in addition to medium is easy to understand coming from a frontman who says that, had he not become a musician, he’d still be playing with words.

“I like books. I'd love to be a professional writer: no music, just words. I'm working on it on the side.” Barring that? “Maybe a clown?” he says. “Or a dog walker.”

The Strange Boys have fans in other hip, literate, musical types, including fellow Austinite James Eno of Spoon, who produced Live Music. But in spite of the growing interest in his band and breathless praise from the likes of Rough Trade Records (“The Strange Boys have provoked excitement and reaction in the Rough Trade offices the like of which has been unseen since the signing of The Strokes”), Sambol remains humble in both his assessment of the band and in his ambitions. When asked to compare The Strange Boys with Eno’s Spoon, he replies simply, “They worked hard to get where they are today. Maybe that’s the biggest similarity: hard work.”

And if Sambol hopes to garner the same acclaim and popularity as bands like Spoon or The Strokes, he’s keeping it under wraps. “Well, we'll have to see,” he says of The Strange Boys’ future. “We're not worried about it. It's a pretty slim chance [that we’ll become a household name]. We're just happy to make records. We're not really looking for the cover of magazines.”

Sambol’s persona reflects this sentiment. Though concise and plainspoken in conversation and seemingly uninterested in celebrity, he plays and sings with gusto both on recordings and in his live performances. He leaves the lasting impression of a man dedicated to his craft and relatively uninterested in most of the trappings that come along with it. And whether you’re talking about a writer, a musician or an artist of any kind, it’s tough to find a quality more authentic than that.