Music Features

Black Kids bassist Owen Holmes is as white as the driven snow-or at least an American Midwest accountant-but let no man suggest that he doesn't know how to funk shit up. The former alt-weekly beat reporter takes home the unsung-hero award on Partie Traumatic, the debut disc from the much-hyped Jacksonville, Florida, quintet. Black Kids may seem fresh out of the practice space, but Holmes's big, bombastic bass lines on dance-synth dynamite like "Hurricane Jane" suggest he's spent more than an evening or two studying the masters. And, no, we're not talking John Entwistle, Sting, or that eyeliner-adorned dandy from Fall Out Boy; Holmes's heroes are of the variety that can get even the most fish-belly white Caucasians shaking it on the dance floor.

"As far as bassists that I really love, there's Chic's Bernard Edwards, and Larry Graham from Sly & the Family Stone," Holmes reveals, on his cellphone from an Albany, New York, tour stop. "Oh, and James Jamerson might be the biggest one. He was with the Funk Brothers, who recorded basically all of Motown's hit singles. I got a lot of funk in me for a white boy."

It makes sense, then, that his booty-quaking side has found its way into Black Kids, which-politically correct types will be relieved-was named by two black kids, singer-guitarist Reggie Youngblood and his synth-playing sister, Ali. With Holmes, drummer Kevin Snow, and keyboardist Dawn Watley representing the honkies, the entire crew has perfected a mix of ice-frosted new wave, rumble-in-the-jungle funk, grey-skies postpunk, and dance-party techno that's made it a cause célèbre among critics at home and abroad.

It's all infectious-not to mention hipster-friendly-enough that, even before anyone in Jacksonville knew who Black Kids were, Rolling Stone was dubbing the band an artist to watch, NME was declaring it the best thing since the Strokes, and Pitchfork was piloting the bandwagon.

"We've kind of jumped into the deep end in a sink-or-swim kind of thing," Holmes says. "I think that we've swam for the most part. I guess we've been together for about two-and-a-half years, or maybe closer to three. We spent one-and-a-half of those years playing Jacksonville for 40 to 50 people."

While things have taken off since then in North America-where Black Kids is now headlining midsize clubs-that's nothing compared with the U.K., where Partie Traumatic debuted in the top five. Holmes suggests that English pop fans get the music a bit more, which one might assume means the postpunk-'80s side of the Kids' personality. What he's really talking about, though, is the group's Happy Mondays–like genre-mashing inclusion of hip-hop, techno, and funk, which has been proven to fill dance floors in the U.K., admittedly mostly with white kids.

"I think British mainstream audiences-more so than Canada and the States-seem willing to embrace music that's just, I don't know, a little bit off in a certain way," Holmes suggests. "I mean, our music is absurd, if you think about it."

Black Kids play Richard's on Richards on Saturday (October 11).