He’s the third member of his band to slowly trickle down to the lobby of their Manhattan hotel after a late night/early morning escapade that’s left some of them too hung-over to speak. After trading stories with his ‘mates, mohawked frontman Endicott collects himself and takes control of the band’s press duties.

“A lot of the bands that are good are too cool or elitist,” Endicott says, “and a lot of critics say that if you are trying to reach people, then it’s not good music anymore.”

So how do you reach people, Sam?

“Dance is the future of rock ‘n’ roll. I mean rock ‘n’ roll was invented as dance music in the first place – that was the point of it and we are kind of trying to bring it back to that.”

The latest in a succession of New York-based bands pumping out ’80s-inspired electronic melodies, The Bravery (Endicott, guitarist Michael Zakarin, bassist Mike H, keyboardist John Conway and drummer Anthony Burulcich) are articulate twenty-somethings from tony neighborhoods like Bethesda and Santa Barbara and Manhattan’s Upper West Side who met in college and through friends of friends.

With New York City becoming the official retro rock capital, the quintet pitched a tent downtown a year and a half ago, worked odd jobs from bartending to delivering falafels, and went about recording the tracks that would later appear on their self-titled debut album, which was released March 29.

The band posted MP3s on the Internet, and soon tastemakers in England were singing their praises. Similar to The Killers and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Bravery used the British buzz to create interest Stateside.

That is, however, where Endicott would like the new wave comparisons to end.

“There’s no one as electronic as us that’s also as rock ‘n’ roll as us,” he insists.

Zakarin quickly agrees: “I don’t even really look at the Killers as a rock group.”

“And they are also not electronic either,” Endicott adds. “I think we move farther in both directions than those bands.”

The group isn’t stubborn enough to deny that there’s a definite trend in music nowadays, and that their tight pants and eye makeup lead critics to make certain associations. They just don’t see where they fit in.

“The homemade violent energy of the electronic movement in New York the last few years was a really cool idea, “Endicott admits, “but none of (the bands) had good songs.”

This is where The Bravery plans to set itself apart from the pack. With an album full of aggressive, guitar-laced dance rhythms that can be compared to everyone from Interpol to Gene Loves Jezebel, they see their sound as their very own mutation.

Of course, not everyone in the rock world sees a difference between the new eyeliner-laden bands, as illustrated by Queens of the Stone Age‘s Josh Homme’s “F— the ’80s” jab after the Bravery’s set at South by Southwest.

Endicott sees QOTSA as yet another example of why rock needs new voices: “Their new music was —-ing boring anyway and they kicked out the best guy in the band.”

Still, Endicott would like to see less of a rift between electronic and guitar rock.

“There’s a divide between the stripped-down totally organic rock ‘n’ roll and totally synthetic bands and I think the future is about there not being a divide – just embracing everything as a whole.”