Death from above from Down Under

 Normally, the question, “Any good road stories so far?” yields responses of breakdown and hangover banality. But Skybombers front man Hugh Gurney beams through the phone, “Yeah!”

Just a week into the band’s second U.S. tour, he already has a great story in his skinny-jeans back pocket.

“Yesterday, we stayed in Minneapolis, and the dude who lived next door to us was this 58-year-old drug dealer, and he got arrested right next to us — in daylight,” the 22 year-old Melbournite says excitedly. “He lives at that motel, and I think he dealt ice out of there or something. No one ever gets arrested in Australia. He was a pretty weird dude. He was wearing a doo-rag.”

Gurney, re-emphasizing, if questioning, the drug dealer’s choice of headgear, repeats: “He was almost 60, and he was wearing a doo-rag!”

Such felonious craziness seems to follow the Melbourne quartet. When they were recording their full-length debut, “Take Me to Town,” with Rick Parker (Black Rebel Motorcycle, Dandy Warhols) in Los Angeles last year, they arrived at the studio one day to yellow tape — there had been a double murder next door. “We weren’t allowed to go into the studio for a day, because they had SWAT teams down there. The killer was still on the loose!”

But there has been good, strange luck for these young’uns, too. “Without even trying,” Skybombers found themselves on Albert Productions, AC/DC’s label and opening for X on their first U.S. tour.

“Take Me to Town” is sonic brethren to the polished rock of Jet and the Libertines’ throttling pop bits, and its lyric sheet is akin to fellow youth group  Arctic Monkeys. Gurney has an eye for detail, even if it’s half-closed and blurry circa a 4 a.m. lock-in.

So, why no single about the double murder on the album?

“Unfortunately, it was on one of the last days, so we couldn’t get it in,” Gurney says. “But maybe the next record we make we’ll have a murder ballad called ‘The Double Murder Ballad.’”

Skybombers with People in Planes and Scuba
Tonight, 9
Middle East Upstairs
472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
MBTA: Red Line to Central
$9, 18+
617-864-EAST
www.mideastclub.com