Rap-rock outfit Hollywood Undead lives vibrantly on alternative rock scene – Yahoo! Canada News
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Thu Apr 8, 9:20 AM
By Nekesa Mumbi Moody, The Associated Press
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Hollywood Undead’s music paints a very convincing portrait of mayhem.
The Los Angeles-based rock-rap outfit’s lyrics are heavy with epithets, violence and other behaviour that would leave many offended, if not horrified. When they’re on stage, they skulk about in clown masks that make them look like villains from a slasher flick.
It’s also precisely why their debut album, “Swan Songs,” has made them a breakthrough act. Released late in 2008, it’s sold more than 650,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, an impressive figure for any act these days, especially a new one.
“The raw aggression and truthfulness of the band, too, it tends to scare some people,” acknowledges Jorel Decker, better known as J-Dog and one of the band’s main vocalists. “But it connects with the real world, because we’re being honest with everybody.”
Yet despite their success, the Hollywood Undead is still far from a mainstream act, and they partly blame their image for that as well. They cite two corporations who refused to sponsor the band because of their content, a development that left them puzzled.
“You watch stuff on TV like ‘CSI,’ and people are getting raped and murdered, and then you listen to our band, and we aren’t nearly like that,” says Decker during a recent interview at a Beverly Hills hotel.
Decker was joined by two other members of the six-person band – George “Johnny 3 Tears” Ragan and Dylan “Funny Man” Alvarez. The polite and jovial threesome showed up sans masks and looking very normal, indeed.
While the band’s language about sex, partying and pent-up anger isn’t PG, it doesn’t reach the shock value of an Eminem, or other acts decried for their lyrical content.
“Any generation, when there’s somebody provocative, having lyrics that are sensationalistic, then their kind of labelled as over the top,” says Dave Weier, vice-president of programming at Fuse TV, one of the early supporters of the band.
Their songs tap into teen angst, but Weier says what has really made the band stand out is the quality of their music.
“At a deeper level, this band has hooks. You can tell who their influences are. They have songs that sound like Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson, Eminem … all those artists also appealed and still appeal to kids in the same way, which is letting go of your frustrations a little bit.”
Their sound, an aggressive mix of rap and rock, recalls a genre that had its peak more than a decade ago. The group acknowledges influences such as Linkin Park, but stress they are bringing something new to the music world.
“On the rap-rock name, I don’t take offence to it because I like Limp Bizkit, I like Korn and groups like that, but there’s a stigma of like, ‘Oh, you’re rap rock,’ so instantly you get defensive when people say that,” says Ragan.
He adds: “We blend rap and rock music but our alchemy of it is a lot different than any other band and its our take on the music we like.”
The band culled what they consider their unique sound while letting out their fury over what at that time seemed like a dead end for them; they had tried to pursue their rock dreams either separately or with other bands, only to see them fizzle.
“It was the frustration from some members trying to do what we wanted to do so desperately, which was make music, and being shut down so much, I think that’s where a lot of the aggression came from,” says Ragan. “No one in Hollywood Undead thought it was going to turn into what it is.”
James Diener, head of their record label, A&M/Octone, said that while “Swan Songs” has been a great introduction for the band, it will be their next album, likely out in the fall, that will bring them a mass audience.
The band “is not in the underground if you’re online, it’s not in the underground if you’re a kid, it’s not in the underground if you know great alternative bands that are coming up. But the band has yet to have a big mainstream next step,” Diener said. “That second album is really important … there’s a big next step there.”
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http://www.hollywoodundead.com
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