Interview: Black Lips

Just four hours later, Atlanta, Georgia’s Black Lips are tearing up The Roadhouse stage, using all manner of baseless shock tactics to throw the audience curveball after curveball, ranging from catching your own spit to sporting bling-bling gold teeth. Right at this moment though, you wouldn’t dream that these four decidedly normal, well-spoken guys would stoop as low as to urinate in their own mouths or French kiss each other on stage just to keep their audience on their toes.

Yet here we are, with Cole (singer/guitarist/spit-catcher), Jared (singer/bassist/handlebar moustache), Ian (guitar/gold fronts) and Joe (drums/screams/flailing arms) waxing lyrical about alcoholic energy drinks and the state of country music. More importantly though, there’s that new album (Good Bad, Not Evil) to cover.

“Our album’s released on September 11th in the States”, Cole informs us, “but we really wanted to compete with Kanye West for a release date. We got some country guy releasing his album on that day though…” “Kenny Chesney”, Jared informatively chips in.

“It’s not even country though. The new (country music) is kinda hilarious. The lyrical content… it’s all (adopts hackneyed Southern accent) ‘Were you theeere when the toweeers feeeelll!’ They’re retarded.”

As one non-sequitur reaches its end, Ian is willing to bring up another so as to not let the conversation take on too linear a manner; “We’re getting into the spirits business”. Jared elaborates, “Ian’s brother invented an alcoholic energy drink… to rival Lil’ Jon’s Crunk Juice”. The band then enthusiastically embellish on the drink’s merits, telling us that it’s “made from exotic Brazilian herbs”, it’s “chemically infused” and that “there’s science involved”. Quite.

The band are just as enthused about the current scene developing out of Atlanta that themselves, Deerhunter and Mastodon seem to be spearheading. “There’s a band called The Selmanaires”, Jared notes, “that are like a Kinks/Talking Heads mash-up. There are bands popping up all over right now. The Coathangers, The Carbonas…” “It’s a really close-knit scene in Atlanta”, Cole explains, “Even, like, Cee-Lo from Gnarls Barkley and Andre 3000 from OutKast, you’ll see on the street.”

What about the future of Black Lips though? What kind of goals do the band have for this new record? “A billion records”, Cole beams. “We want to outsell Kanye and 50 Cent”, Joe quips, an ironic smirk creeping across his face. I guess it’s a mark of the band that they treat the important things trivially and the trivial things with the utmost importance, but something tells me that the manic stage show and borderline-unhinged recordings are all part of some devious world-domination plot. Be warned when you crack open that bottle of D-Tuned.

http://www.highvoltage.org.uk/displaydemoreview.asp?num=3170&band=1728

Single: Black Lips - Cold Hands (Vice)

Black Lips' albums and singles to-date have been exercises in re-creating the fuzzed-out no-fi of the 60s' garage-punk progenitors like The Sonics, The Seeds and The Monks, culminating in this year's live document, Los Valientes Del Mondo Nuevo. This new single, the first from their forthcoming fourth studio album is a progression from that sound without losing any of the raw, giddy thrills that those records had in spades.

'Cold Hands' is a surf-punk rumble that sounds like it should be soundtracking a knife-fight between Dean and Brando and evokes, amongst other things, pomade, leather and gasoline. It's also catchy-as-hell and not a million miles removed from the punk-pop bands you hear on the radio everyday, only, like, tons better and a lot more dangerous. What are Black Lips rebelling against? I'm tempted to say, "What have you got?", but it's clearly mediocrity that they're striving to save us from. It's about time that we learned to love the kids from the wrong side of the tracks again.

http://www.highvoltage.org.uk/displaydemoreview.asp?num=2727&band=1728

Live: Black Lips (The Roadhouse, Manchester, 29.4.07.)

Every once in a while, you see a gig that reaffirms your faith in rock 'n' roll and realigns dwindling expectations in the old bass-guitar-drums set-up. One that sets the bar up a notch again, back to what it once was. A gig that for 24 hours after feels like the best gig you've ever seen. Black Lips at the Roadhouse was one of those gigs.

Not that this was the best thing I'd ever seen on stage, but it threw into stark relief just how boring and stultifying most rock bands are live. Black Lips have been steadily cementing their status as a fierce, unpredictable live act for the past three years or so, with tales of inter-band kissing, members urinating into their own mouths and hardcore nudity. This kind of stuff is all sideshow though and it's the sheer garage punk thrill of seeing bands play loud, fast, infectious tunes that they've mastered. All the gross-out tricks in the world could neither add nor subtract from that.

We get lead guitarist Cole swapping spit with rhythm guitarist Ian, which is something you don't always see. What you see even less of these days though is a band as thrilling as Black Lips. There's an epiphany moment during the rocketing 'M.I.A.' when you look at all four members trading off on vocals, playing as hard and as rapidly as they can (Drummer, Joe, in particular looks like some fevered hybrid of Animal from The Muppets and an octopus) and you can't help but think “I love this band”, or even, “I want to be in this band”. Isn't that what rock 'n' roll is all about? They don't reinvent the wheel, but they've stuck some pretty bitching spokes on it.

http://www.highvoltage.org.uk/displaydemoreview.asp?num=2605&band=1728