If the members of Boston band Apollo Sunshine have a musical style, it’s their proud refusal to pick one. Having met at the Berklee College of Music, songwriters Sam Cohen and Jesse Gallagher and drummer Jeremy Black can nail any style from hillbilly ditties and Beatles-esque pop to psychedelic freakout -- sometimes in the same song. 

And if they have no easily-labeled sound, they also have no collective fashion sense. “Damn, I don’t know,” says Jeremy when he’s asked about his personal style, finally admitting to an affinity for Western-style snap-button shirts. Sam, amused to be discussing his thrift-shop dress habits, calls his look “kinda dirty musician.” And the lanky, bearded Jesse warns that he’s not exactly a “Project Runway” kind of guy. “I’m pretty finicky about pants,” he says, by which he means that he has just two pair he actually wears, both tattered, nondescript OshKosh B’Gosh work pants.  

Getting these guys into matching LTB jeans was nearly as chaotic as the group’s uncategorizable sound. After two albums for spinART – the 2003 debut “Katonah” and a thrilling, self-titled followup, released last year – the band may be on the verge of putting together a significant breakthrough. But they still can’t get their addresses straight. Sam, who grew up in Houston, recently moved to the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Jeremy is relocating to San Francisco to live with his girlfriend. She’s a DJ on local radio; when Apollo Sunshine did an appearance in nearby San Jose, “she did the stage announcement,” he explains. “It was love at first sight.”

Oddly, it was Jesse, the one band member still in Boston, who had the most difficulty getting his jeans. Forgetting to include his apartment number with his address, the package sat at the post office for days. Sam, a compact guy who says he typically wears a ladies’ size 6 – “the ones that have the shorter crotch areas” – was initially reluctant to wear the 32-inch inseam ‘Debbie’ that he got from LTB, the premium Turkish company that wants to replicate its considerable overseas success in the States. After a few days, however, he cut them off.

“I didn’t have a pair of dark ones like this,” he says. “Mine are all stained with motor oil and stuff, and I really needed some clean pants. I wore them to the bank today.”

So… ? He’s surprised to find he’s comfortable in the jeans, with one caveat – he’s not a big fan of the brand’s conspicuous crab logo. “It’s a little silver trinket,” he reports. “It reminds me of something a fancy woman would wear.”

But Jeremy, the drummer, is fine with it: “Nothing cheesy,” he says. He wore his ‘Randy’ LTBs over a three-day weekend back in his old stomping grounds, including a gig at Boston University.

“They fit real well. I definitely like them,” he says. “I like that they’re a little stretchy. After three days, they were way more comfortable.”

Though most of his jeans tend to be Levi’s or Gap, he says he has dabbled in high-end denim too. “I have one pair of Lucky Brand. I had some Diesels, but I wore them out.”

For Jeremy, the deciding factor is a familiar one: His girlfriend says he looks good in his ‘Randy’ LTBs. “Her opinion matters more than mine,” he says.

As for Jesse, well, there’s no telling whether he’s ready for a wardrobe upgrade. A followup call to his cell phone got his voicemail message, which featured a snippet of some fine old Jamaican soul from Toots and the Maytals.

“We’re listening to a more diverse mix than ever,” says Sam, who adds that the band expects to begin recording a new album after the first of the year. “It’s a process of taking the parts we like, and then seeing what’s compatible.”

Just like putting together an outfit.

~James Sullivan
Author of “Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon.” 

Get Yours:

LTB Jeans’, LTB, Randy, $88, and Debbie, $88, are available at LTB Jeans, 494 Broadway, NY, (212) 219-0881, and other Little Big Jeans retailers around the world.