Since the Waylons formed back in 2003, fans, critics, and even the band members themselves have failed to find a neat descriptor for their sound. There are strains of rock, country, pop, and folk music, but no firm stratification. That's what happens when you play in a songwriters' band. Karl Wachter (guitar) Sean Leadem (guitar) Patrick Cadigan (bass) and Sandy Levering (drums) bring their own varied influences and sensibilities to a Greenpoint rehearsal space a couple times a week. Those narratives and melodies are honed by the band until it becomes its own gem, a Waylons song. After playing nearly every small and mid-sized venue in the city (from Lakeside Lounge to Mercury Lounge and Southpaw), the Waylons are recording a follow-up to their 2006 self-titled debut. "We've been writing better songs, and I just want to keep making them," said Patrick in a Williamsburg bar on a recent Sunday afternoon. Sean looked at him and laughed. "What are you going to do? Not make them?"

No one's ever been able to simply classify your sound.

Sean: We're very focused on writing songs. We like songs. The song emerges and that's the song. There's going to be different kinds of songs, given our various eclectic tastes. Once the Waylons applies itself to the song, it sounds like the Waylons.  It'll always be song first, and then sound. If we were more about the sound or maybe had only one songwriter, it would be easier to classify us – and easier to book us.

You write your songs individually. How does Karl's song become a Waylons' song?

Sean: It’s collaborative in the sense that Karl writes a song, but he won’t tell us how to play it. Or I’ll bring in melody or lyrics and maybe some idea about what the drums should do or the bass should do. But in most cases, the songwriter lets the rest of us dangle and mess around and the song emerges.

Karl: We know some New York bands that basically write their songs together in their rehearsal space. I think the result might be more stylistic songs, and might make for more of a New York sound. We don't write songs together.  Songs we bring in are finished in one sense - we each could have done a totally acceptable version of that song as a home recording - but instead we give the song over to become a Waylons song.

Is there anything that makes the Waylons a New York band?

Sean: The fact that we're all from somewhere else.

Patrick: If you say, "I'm in a band in Brooklyn," people already have an automatic idea about what that is. Whatever that is, we're not that.

What's made the Waylons last so long?

Sean: We are slowly – more slowly than I thought in the past – becoming the band that I want to be, the band I want to listen to. Two years ago I was more like, "What the hell! Why haven't we made more progress?" What are you going to do? The music's getting better.

Karl: There's always some measure of the progress that we've made – it’s enough to keep us going. There are things we've done this year that we haven't done before—we’re on radio stations, and more and more people are discovering us, in New York and elsewhere.

You don't play out as much as you once did. Why?

Karl: We've sort of been transitioning into a band that’s focused more on recording songs than playing live. We’re still interested in joining a proper tour with some other great bands and we love playing shows.   We just seem to be getting our music out there more successfully through recording and sending it out, rather than relying on the live scene here in NY. We do love playing shows though, and we’ll definitely be out there.

What's your favorite venue to play in New York?

All, with enthusiasm: Cake Shop.