The Cowboys - Captain Easy’s Downfall (2025) Hi-Res

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — A bit of punk grit, early ’80s power pop sparkle, and the kind of guitar riffs that stick in your head long after the needle lifts — that’s what listeners can expect from The Cowboys’ new album, Captain Easy’s Downfall, out Friday, Sept. 19.

The record opens with “The Hate in Your Heart,” a track that feels like an antidote to bleak times, packaged in an upbeat melody that could just as easily be about a soured friendship or a breakup. “Little Baby Birds” follows with a wall of psychedelic-tinged guitars that take the listener on a trippy ride, while “Fate Worse Than Death” leans on sharp rhymes and a hooky guitar line as it unravels the story of a fractured relationship.

The Cowboys aren’t newcomers chasing their first taste of success. These are seasoned songwriters who’ve lived a little, but still tap into the raw cool that earned them tours with garage-punk cult hero Nobunny and a loyal underground following.

For longtime Bloomington music watchers, the band is a reminder of the city’s fertile DIY scene — one that once thrived on low-rent houses, underground shows, and impromptu performances in laundromats, record stores, and even parking lots. Somehow, I missed The Cowboys the first time around, even while documenting the scene. Bloomington was the kind of place between the early 2000s (and much longer before) and roughly 2014, where the kids who didn’t fit anywhere else came to play in bands. Quiet nights, rising rents, and heavy policing of housed venues to shut them down dulled that edge, but for a while, it was one of the best indie rock scenes in the country.

It’s a real shame that our local leaders didn’t understand the music scene here—or its value—and more or less squashed it with local policies. Then came the terrible demise of Rhino’s, demolished for apartments where a promised first-floor venue never materialized, along with the closure of places like Rachel’s Café. As a result, there just aren’t as many places to play. Sure, there’s the Blockhouse and the Orbit Room, but that’s not the same as the house shows of days past. Mostly national acts play at the Bishop—but I love that bar and venue, and you, the reader, should check out a show there and support it, along with all the venues we have left. The stories about shows at Rhino’s are now just local legend, but I remember seeing Agent Orange play there once—years and years after their music blasted from a tape player perched atop my backyard skate ramp in Central California. Aside from a bad country music cover band here or there, we didn’t even have a local music scene in Porterville, California, which is why I’ve loved Bloomington’s so much in the time I’ve lived here. Skate punks in the ’80s were DIY long before it was cool.

So, this once mostly local band in Bloomington, The Cowboys, where formed in 2012 when guitarist Mark McWhirter and vocalist Keith Harman bonded over Brian Eno at a party, The Cowboys cut their teeth on Bloomington’s house-show circuit, mixing clever originals with covers like Monochrome Set’s “Jet Set Junta.” Their reputation grew thanks to chaotic sets — including a five-hour marathon inside a Walmart and a midnight relocation to a park after police shut down a house show.

Early recordings were tracked on a Tascam 4-track and released on cassettes by friends before being compiled into LPs. By 2014, the band was touring heavily, and despite lineup changes, their energy carried them across the country. Members eventually scattered — Harman to Chicago, Jordan Tarantino to Cincinnati, McWhirter to Mexico City, bassist Zack “Chode” remaining in Bloomington — but they regrouped to make Captain Easy’s Downfall.

Unlike past projects, the album was pieced together across borders. The band tracked the core material in Cincinnati, while McWhirter recorded additional guitar layers in Mexico City and later handled the mixing. “Each song has like 50 tracks, more or less,” McWhirter said. “It was countless hours of work, but the finished product is something we’re proud of.”

Though more polished than earlier efforts, the DIY ethos remains intact. Without label support this time, The Cowboys are self-releasing the record, relying on fans and zines to help spread the word.

For a group that once turned Walmart aisles into a stage and midnight parks into impromptu venues, it feels like a natural step — independent, unfiltered, and still unapologetically themselves.

No two Cowboys records are the same, but you always get quirky, catchy melodies that run the gamut from punk to classic rock ’n’ roll. Behind the playful exterior is sharp, masterful songwriting, and with its 19 tracks of variety and hooks, this might be my favorite Cowboys record yet.