I have made it a personal mission to support my local heroes. I dont want a world full of cookie cutter music, I want the new and the old and something just different to feed upon.
Twitter can be a great resource. On Grammy night as I sat leg up snarfing soy ice cream from the carton I noticed The Suicide Dolls, a band I follow making some of the most snarky, sarcastic slamming statements of all time. Researching more I made contact and upon doing so found something yummy.
As this months public service annoucncement I present to you Connecticuts own Suicide Dolls, the coolest trio you’ve never seen.
Ive opted for an email interview since I loved the writing style I saw in their Twitter.. check out whats happening in the real world while Kesha gets the press.
What’s with the name- tell me about your band mates, and your backgrounds.The Band ::
the Suicide Dolls are Brian James Albano (Brian Suicide) — guitar/vocals // Michelle Montavon (Michelle Suicide) — bass/vocals // Matt Covey — drums.
Brian and I have known eachother since 1988 & have been playing music since 1994. We’re from New London, CT and started in 2002. We actually took a break to work on a political campaign in late 2003, but picked up again in 2004 and haven’t stopped since. We’ve worked with many talented drummers over the years, but are really happy to be playing with Matt Covey again… this is his second run with us, the first being in 2006-2007, and then again from 2009-present. Matt has dedicated his entire life to the drums, and it shows.
Our Name ::
Anyone, with any vice, plays with their own self-destruction and is therefore a Suicide Doll.
Charlie Sheen is a Suicide Doll… Eliott Spitzer, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Televangelist Jim Bakker (caught with his pants down) are all Suicide Dolls. YOU, reading this, are probably one, too.
Strangely, we found out a while after we started that there was a Japanese movie called ‘Suicide Dolls’ (1999) which we never saw. In 2010, there was an American re-make of that movie which we ALSO have not seen.
What are the influences of you and the band as a wholeIf you mean musical influences, we all listen to a wide spectrum of genres… growing up in the 80s, we have a hard time escaping the larger-than-life pop-influence of that decade in general. We’re heavily inspired by 60s psychedlia, 70s punk & No Wave, 80s post-punk & alternative, and 90s+2000s garage, grunge & noise. Covey, our drummer, is also all over the musical map… he can go from Funk, Soul & Jazz, Ska, Reggae & Punk, Hip Hop, Dance or Hardcore in the blink of an eye. Somehow, we make all these influences work when we get together.
Previous bands?
Brian and I both picked up our instruments in 1994. We played in 2 different drone/all-noise bands in the mid-late 90s before eventually turning into the Suicide Dolls. We basically took the far-out, experimental jams of our noise bands and incorporated them into a pop/punk structure.
Covey has played with tons of bands, including The Flaming Tsunami’s, and is currently also the drummer for Shai Hulud (Metal Blade Records) who are a Progressive Hardcore/Metalcore band, which interestingly couldn’t be more different than us genre-wise.
What are your thoughts on the current state of music? With people like Beiber and Gaga taking over the air, is alternative music worth the fight?While there’s not much we can do about the state of popular music today, as music lovers, we can’t help but resent what it has become. It has never been so saturated, with so few choices on the national airwaves. The select few that ARE played are violently shoved down people’s throats. With enough repetition of the same thing, people start to believe that they actually LIKE it.
The fact that our culture has been trying to put 16 yr old kids on a pedestal, or look to them for any kind of substance AT ALL is depressing. Likewise, we’re not entirely sure how Gaga became as powerful as she is. Like why would Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, call her before announcing ANY legislative decisions?? It seems absurd to us. We shouldn’t be watching CNN and be told that politicians are looking to her for direction on any issue, or get ‘coast-to-coast reaction’ of Bieber’s haircut. It is troubling to us, to say the least.
On the other side, though, there has never been a bigger underground than there is now. There are undergrounds to the underground… In a way, alternative music has been given the chance to re-claim its’ genre. The hardest part for us sometimes is that we are little older and clearly remember the 80s– when alternative really WAS the alternative to what was on the radio… It’s starting to feel like that actually exists again, and that’s not so bad.
Self promotion, social networking. Do you find it helpful or expected? The market is saturated with bands now, how do you stand out?We absolutely find it helpful. Technology has shrunken the world, and we would not have been able to tour as easily without being able to connect to so many different music scenes around the country. The social networks have made that possible. Bands who are motivated can really do a lot for themselves, but self promotion will only go so far. In the end, you still need to be great live and have interesting songs in order to stand out from the crowd. Unless, of course, you ‘know someone’.
Something we have seen more of over the last year or so are bands who have only been together for a few months taking off really quickly. They get one mention in the ‘right’ blog, or they know someone who writes for one, and all of a sudden, they are given a ton of respect out of nowhere, without knowing what it really means to BE a band. There are a good amount of bands who weren’t around 1 or 2 years ago that are being hailed as the next big thing. For a band that does it the hard way, it can sting a little, especially if said bands create bad karma around themselves.
A great expample :: We were recently added to a bill in NYC with 3 bands who have played the scene for years, and 1 band who is recent. The band who is new to the scene have not played many shows, and have not dealt with many bands. The female member in the band is well connected, as she has a supporting role on the HBO series ‘Boardwalk Empire’. She allegedly had ”Industry People” coming to see her performance that night, and the Suicide Dolls were scheduled to play right before her band. People were buzzing about the show, as it was a strong bill of known bands and we have not played NYC since last year. Because of this, she used her pull as an ‘actress’ to have us removed from the bill… We were told by the other bands that her band did not want the ‘industry people’ to see us band play before HER band performed, because she wanted the night to be about them.
Maybe that is how people treat eachother in the acting world, but in the MUSIC world–with bands who have played all over, and have played for years–it is considered VERY bad karma to treat another band that way. SO bad, in fact, that every other band on that bill dropped off and left them to scramble to fill the night, with an entirely new lineup at the last minute. THAT is what we call band solidarity!!
Gigging/ recording. In the states bands are traveling in packs. Financially more sound but it also prevents the recording of new material. Your thoughts on this trend?
Gigging ::
Every tour that we have done has been by ourselves. We know of bands who travel together, but for us, it is far easier to approach a venue with 2 locals and 1 out of town band on any given night. As the out of towners, you really want as much local support as possible… many lineups have 3 bands, and if you travel with another band it doesn’t leave much room for locals to draw.
Regionally, it is safe to say that the Suicide Dolls are known as being one of the most helpful bands around right now. We firmly believe that all scenes can be enriched by bringing new bands into them… we have brought countless bands into our scene from out of town, out of state, and even from different countries. We have helped other bands get gigs that we didn’t even play… it’s all about keeping your karma clean, and knowing that eventually, it will return to you three-fold.
Recording ::
We are currently defined by our live shows and our long list of places we’ve played… we are completely DIY & have no day jobs, and we have never had the money required to hit the studio for a ‘proper’ recording. Everything we have done has been in a basement or basic home studio… until now. At the end of March, we are entering the legendary Q Division Studios in Boston, where Pixies, Mission of Burma, Steve Albini, Morphine, and many others have previously recorded. We will also be recorded by Justin Pizzoferrato, who has engineering credits with Dinosaur Jr, J Mascis, Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth, Free Kitten and the Hold Steady, among others. We are looking forward to finally having a CD available that is a good representative of what we’re about, and we’re hoping to have it mastered and ready for release this summer.
7- Lyrical inspiration, arts and movement. other interests that tie in to the goals of the band. (this is your shameless self promotion portion! Go big!)
Lyrical Inspiration ::
Brian and I are the 2 lyrical songwriters of the band, and have both individually lived through incredibly twisted childhoods… We were both seperatley exposed to things before we hit 10 years old that many people don’t have to deal with until their late teens/early 20s. Because of our experiences as kids, we are still filled with an exorbitant amount of angst and inappropriate senses of humor–even as adults. It inevitably shines through in our lyrics and music, for better or worse. Most of our songs have something to do with our jaded views of society, sex and drugs, dark secrets and obsessions, the highs and lows of relationships, actual experiences and people who have passed away. We write about mythological gods and the power they have to grant wishes, as well as those dark experiences from our childhoods that still haunt us. When we write, we are really putting it all out there… it is truly a window into our souls.
We feel we have been lucky in this life to connect with eachother, because our goals and interests are largely the same. We all want to be involved in music for as long as we can, and bring it to every corner of the globe however we can. The three of us are extremely motivated and friendly, and really try to express something with our music. We are all in agreement that it’s about being a PART of something, not just being the only star on the tree. We all love & live our art, and because of this, we are probably the most economically-challenged band you will ever meet! We know full well that certain genres may trend at different times, but it doesn’t stop us from being true to our sound, which we have worked hard to create. I think the only complaint from any of us is that we all wish the music ‘industry’ was just a bit kinder to the ‘musicians’ who make the music… you know, just so we can buy a new pair of shoes or jeans when we get holes in our current pair 😉
We have asked this of every artist we have interviewed–what would you call the most surprising song on your iPod. Something no one would expect you to have on there.
Bread “Everything I Own”. When that shit comes on, I (michelle) rock out with the devil horns. Big fan of Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” and Robert Johns “Sad Eyes”, too. 🙂
We have asked this of every artist we have interviewed -describe yourself in 3 words
the Suicide Dolls