Five albums into a career that started to take shape around 2011, Black Pistol Fire’s Eric Owen and Kevin McKeown are learning there’s a payoff to keeping the faith.

This past weekend, the duo ripped it up at the mammoth Voodoo Music + Arts Experience in New Orleans, earning a best-of-the-fest nod from Consequence of Sound. (Black Pistol Fire trumped the Killers, Foo Fighters, and Kendrick Lamar to take the top live-spectacle honours, the tastemaking site delivering the following rave: “McKeown crossed the finish line with jeans ripped in multiple places, a thoroughly dirtied (formerly) white T-shirt, a bloodied nose bridge and, doubtless, a slew of new converts, including all the video guys and security guards, who I overheard on multiple occasions gabbing excitedly about ‘the most amazing show’—truly, the exemplary festival set—throughout the rest of the weekend.”)

On this side of the border, the just-released Deadbeat Graffiti is building all-important traction on radio, the thumping “Lost Cause” catching on at stations from Nanaimo, of all places, to the Centre of the Universe. Over the line, iHeart Radio and Sirius have long been onboard, as have the folks who cherry-pick songs for placement in big-budget commercials. (Black Pistol Fire got invaluable exposure, not to mention a decent-sized cheque, when last year’s “Hard Luck” was used in a Toyota Super Bowl commercial.)

Not bad considering that for the longest time, McKeown (who sings and plays guitar) and Owen (drums) couldn’t get arrested in their hometown of Toronto, which they eventually bailed on in favour of setting up shop in Austin, Texas.

“We tried for years to get a Canadian label,” Owen says from his adopted home in the Lone Star State. “We tried to get Canadian management and a Canadian agent. We had all these big Canadian agents come see us one time to hopefully book us in Vancouver or Toronto and every one of them passed. It wasn’t just like they all said ‘No, thanks.’ They actually came to shows and, for whatever reason, we didn’t connect with them.”

The drummer has a theory about why that might be. For the past decade or so, the Canadian underground scene has been ruled by acts that fall squarely under the umbrella of indie rock, whether you’re talking Wolf Parade in Montreal, Broken Social Scene in Toronto, or Mother Mother in Vancouver. Since releasing an eponymous debut in 2011, Black Pistol Fire has created an unholy roar that sounds decidedly more American—think Jack White in a bare-knuckled barroom brawl with Led Zeppelin, Lead Belly, Otis Redding, and Bob Dylan.

Those references are as valid as ever on Deadbeat Graffiti. Things start off all icky-thump drums and rocket-launch guitars with “Lost Cause”, after which the men of Black Pistol Fire unleash their inner bluesman for “Speak of the Devil”, give grunge a gospel dusting on “Hearts of Habit”, and take garage to turbocharged extremes with “Don’t Ask Why”.

“We wanted the record to have a lot more groove than our older albums,” Owen explains. “‘Speak of the Devil’ was one of the first things we did, and it made us realize that not all songs need to be mid-tempo or fast. It’s okay to sometimes slow things down a bit.”

When it comes to hitting the stage, though, Black Pistol Fire tends to shoot for nothing less than the incendiary. There’s a reason people are talking.

“We’ve known each other forever, and from kindergarten right until now Kevin was, um, wild,” Owen says with a laugh. “He was the guy that would jump off the roof of the building into the snow just because he wanted to get a rise out of people. More than anything, he just wants to entertain people. Before he’d break his arm. Now it’s all kind of been focused, with his energy getting out on-stage. It’s funny—when a lot of bands play a show there’s a perception that there’s a big party afterwards with a bunch of people in the dressing room. For us, we’re basically fucking gassed after we play a show. Growing up, we played rugby. I don’t feel as bad as after a rugby game injurywise, but the exhaustion is definitely the same.”

Black Pistol Fire plays the Biltmore next Thursday (November 23).