Morning Metal: Metal Rant #4: Resurgance
Rockso Rants:
Resurgance
I have been listening to some bands lately that metalitists would consider “emo”. The resurgance of make-up covered metal bands that have been popping up in recent years. Bands that come with an image, essentially. Motionless In White, Black Veil Brides, Blood on the Dance Floor, Hollywood Undead, Love and Death, amongst others, have all been using some sort of imagery in their music. It could be a mask, paint or dyed hair.
Let’s make one thing clear: I don’t listen to Blood on the Dance Floor, which have just recently been kicked off a tour with Combichrist. Hah. While the use of make-up is not strictly metal, I am only going to involve those bands that indeed wear make-up. Instead of casually talking about bands in general, I am going to go into the bands most prominent today.
Motionless In White – A band whose name comes from an Eighteen Visions song, who occasionally wore make-up as well, before Hart realized it was…you know, lame. Motionless In White advertise the Marilyn Manson-like look: Black eye shadow and white face paint. Despite having some awesome tunes, Motionless In White will forever be labeled as a band that is trying to look and sound like Manson. Ugh. Give me a break. Thankfully, Manson has gone downhill in his musical career, and Motionless In White has released some pretty radical songs. I’m all for this.
Black Veil Brides – While I don’t listen to B.V.B, I do believe they are not without some talent. Biersack does have a pretty wicked voice, although I wouldn’t consider B.V.B to be a metal band. Motley Crue has been reborn and reshaped. Glam metal may not be coming back into popularity any time soon, but these guys at least bring the past into the spotlight.
Blood on the Dance Floor – Seriously? I wondered where all the hate came from until I watched the music video for “Bewitched”. Aside from the rumours about Dahvie Vanity, there are zero redeemable qualities about this duo. And yet, those scene girls will keep them alive and on tour. We thank you from the deepest circle of the Seven Hells, xXSuicideGirlzXx.
WHAT THE HELL, AMERICA?
Hollywood Undead – I wasn’t a huge fan of Hollywood Undead for some time, but the more you listen to them the more you’ll end up liking them. Bringing back the “metal and rap” abomination, Hollywood Undead’s members are more-so influenced from rap than metal. This makes you wonder; where the hell did they get the metal side from? Sure, they don’t have crazy solos but they have some hard rock riffs. Hollywood Undead’s reasoning for having the masks is actually legit: In an interview with KROQ, J3T spoke about their imager after being complimented by the interviewer;
“That is why we wear them. We want to be judged for our music, not our looks. Imagine a band full of Brad Pitt’s playing music, you’d be like “That guy is so fine, what are they playing? I don’t care.”
– Johnny 3 Tears on “why we wear masks”.
(L-R, Funny Man, Charlie Scene, J-Dog, Danny, Da Kurlzz and Johnny 3 Tears)
Falling In Reverse – Back when Ronnie Radke was in Escape The Fate, they had the whole spikey hair and eye liner deal going on. Luckily, Ronnie has drifted away from the whole make up thing and replaced it with stupid tattoos on his face. Falling In Reverse DOES have some “scene” looking members, especially their old bass player, Mika Horiuchi. Holy CRAP this guy went all out. I have no idea what the hell happened to Radke’s punk and hardcore background, but now he’s been releasing rap music. Sigh. The only upside to this band is that Jacky Vincent is an absolutely INSANE guitarist.
Rob Zombie – Rob Zombie is known for being incredibly visual, from his live shows to album covers. Zombie has always donned the “dead man” look ever since Hellbilly Deluxe in 1998. He continues to use it on stage even now, and it totally rocks it. I must give my thanks to Hellbilly Deluxe because that album is the reason why I love metal. John 5 has also been known for wearing bizarre outfits on stage, usually donning a cowboy hat, a skull bandana or various face paint designs.
Off track a little bit here, but it seems to me like the majority of these bands only wear make-up or have masks to get attention. Which, by the way, is a great idea. Buckethead‘s image is what drew people to him, but his music is why they stayed. When I first saw Buckethead, I immediately went “Damn, if he’s that weird to wear a KFC bucket on his head… What does his music sound like?” And you’d be in the same boat as me if you said “His music is freakin’ weird.” Incredible, but weird.
Avatar – There are some bands who just have the one member AND they have a theme. For example, Avatar‘s Johannes Eckerstrom has been wearing a clown-like face paint ever since the release of 2012’s Black Waltz. The story behind why he started using face paint is really neat; it’s detailed in the “Making Of Black Waltz”, skip ahead to 3:40. The face paint theme continued into 2014’s Hail The Apocalpse (which is a totally brutal album), but Eckerstrom switched over a more carnival look, donning red instead of black.
Limp Bizkit – I will probably get criticized for this, but I love Limp Bizkit. I recorded “Break Stuff” for my school recording exam, because even though it is the simplest song. Wes Borland is an ace player. Wes is pretty much the reason why Limp Bizkit got anywhere, and as mean as that may sound, it’s true. People were attracted to Wes’ image and they got bigger through word of mouth. Fred Durst persuaded Jonathan Davis with horrible tattoos and beer to listen to one of their demos, but Wes made them popular… So you can thank Fieldy from Korn for Limp Bizkit getting on two Family Values tours.
Korn – Korn has never been one to wear make-up or use masks, but ever since Head rejoined the band in 2013… Head started doing the whole eyeliner thing when he became a born again Christian in 2005 (because apparently Jesus wore eyeliner). Well, the rest of the band didn’t wear make-up whatsoever until 2013 when Fieldy started doing the same thing, except his was even more stupid. He has X on his right eye and O on his left, what this has to do with Christianity is beyond me, but if anyone knows – tell me! (did I mention he’s a born again Christian, too?) Sigh.
Slipknot – I saved the best for last. The beast engine that is Slipknot has attracted the majority of metal heads (we’ll leave out the metal heads who feel their music needs to be more br00tal) because of their music and their image. Really, you take the name Slipknot and you can picture nine guys wearing creepy masks playing this insanely aggressive and rage fuelled metal. Although, it would be funny if Slipknot were nine pasty white guys wearing jump suits and psycho masks playing punk rock. Nearly 75% of Slipknot’s success and publicity came from the masks.
If there is anything to be learned here, it’s that you need an image to go along with your music. This day and age, nobody cares how brutal your music is. There is a small amount of the population that will be attracted to a band solely based on how your music sounds. Even Tool has awesome art-work and a light show that syncs up with their music. Want to be more attractive to listeners? Come up with a theme.
Final thoughts: Batman V Superman’s official teaser is pretty dope. Red eyes vs blue eyes. It’s goan get reeeeeal.
James Rockso – Host of CKCU 93.1 FM’s Morning Metal