"English Teeth are a raucous British Invasion style rock band with plenty of energy and a fantastic live show. Teeth's three EP's -- rather shockingly -- manage to bottle the testosterone-driven rock nicely. There's some Rolling Stones, MC5, Strokes, and subtle homages to early American blues" —The Austinist

Kevin Hoetger, lead singer for the Austin rock band English Teeth, took Adam McKay, writer and director of films including "The Other Guys" and "Step Brothers," to see singer-songwriter James McMurtry at the Continental Club in September. Listening to McMurtry, whose repertoire includes songs such as "Cheney's Toy," which offers up a less-than-flattering perspective on former president George W. Bush, they began talking about why there weren't more contemporary protest songs, especially with the political dialogue as heated as it has been in recent years.

"Listening to the lyrics, we both started talking about doing some kind of politically infused rock tunes, and we said, 'Let's make it kind of a protest thing, and see what happens,' " Hoetger says.

McKay and Hoetger had been introduced to each other several years earlier by Hoetger's brother, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, and already collaborated on music that has appeared in some of McKay's films, including "Talladega Nights."

McKay, who has experience writing comedic songs from his days at "Saturday Night Live," would provide the lyrics, and Hoetger would put them to music. Originally, they planned to just put out an album of music recorded by English Teeth (Hoetger, Kevin McKinney, Alexander Lynch and Kyle Crusham), but the idea evolved into a more interactive project where they would invite others to write their own protest songs.

Eight months later, Public Domain Protest Song was born. They launched a website, publicdomainprotestsong.com, where they made a four-song EP available as a free download. On the title track, the band offers a bleak view on the state of the nation: "I pledge allegiance to Goldman Sachs/Under God and shadow PACS/Fox News and a wall of white noise/Confuse the girls and confuse the boys. —Peter Mongilllo, The American Statesman