A prolific songwriter, Souza started out playing bass and later switched to guitar. He was in several bands in his hometown, including the punk act Boys Life when he was a wee lad of 15. “We used to wear Boy Scout uniforms,” Souza recalls with a laugh. “I used to sneak out of the house to play gigs.”

Eventually Souza left music by the wayside and went on to college. Yet his songwriting spark remained, and when he moved to LA in the mid-‘90s, he started playing solo in restaurants and coffeehouses. Through his roommate, he met lead guitarist B.C. Coulter, then playing in a band called the American Martyrs (an MTV Basement Tapes winner, for those into trivia). Drummer “Pablo Diablo” Galvan was a chef at a cafe where Souza had a regular gig, and occasionally he’d finish his shift and join the guitarist on stage. Slide guitarist B. (for Bosco) Sheff and bass player Digger Stone signed on with Souza after their band Bovine broke up.

From the beginning, Souza was the band’s sole songwriter. “I come to rehearsal with just the vocal melody and the chords. Everybody just sort of figures their part out, and the song evolves,” he explains. “It’ll sound different six months later, and that’s kinda cool.”

His distinctive style mixes classic melodic pop and twangy Americana, an unusual combo that has its roots in Souza’s childhood. When he was seven or eight, his mother gave him a tape player and three “greatest hits” cassettes: The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, and Johnny Cash. “That’s all I listened to,” he says. “That was my earliest recollection of liking something. Then the first songs I liked as a teenager for my own reasons -- not just because someone said it was cool -- were ‘Protection’ by Graham Parker and ‘Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes’ by Elvis Costello. I remember those two songs so vividly. I think that’s when I started writing.”

Once Souza started, he found inspiration in the most unusual places. The lyrics to “Megaphone Man” draw from an article someone gave him about a government-funded experiment in controlling the weather. Though Souza prefers “not to write things that are too literal,” the song touches on invention, man’s ability to manipulate his environment, and the genius of Captain Beefheart.

Other influences on Souza’s writing can be deduced from 50 Cent Haircut’s well-chosen covers. Like inspirational predecessors The Kinks, they’ve been known to interpret classic Slim Harpo numbers. They sound equally at home on versions of Robyn Hitchcock or J.J. Cale songs. Yet the proof of any good band is in its originals, and 50 Cent Haircut doesn’t disappoint. Their well-crafted songs, performed without any frills, offer an unexpected burst of inspiration, like a random newspaper clipping or a sign in a barbershop window. A bargain at twice the price.

-- Jackie McCarthy

Jackie McCarthy is the former music editor of Seattle Weekly, and writes about music and other topics for CMJ New Music Monthly, Seattle Weekly, and Resonance on paper, and CDNow and Wall of Sound on the web.