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JJ's Bizarre Blog #34 - The Undead Voices of the City of Angels
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Sup everyone! August is here and it’s a very special time of the year for me. Last time, I finally got to talk about one of my favourite genres and the sound of my childhood – nu metal! I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading that one since I really loved making it. So going off of that, I’ve decided to present you this time with a detailed entry about the last band mentioned in that blog and one that holds a special place in my heart. A band I’ve been following since they started from nothing and one I’m a massive fan of to this day. So get your masks on, watch for the Dove and Grenade and let’s dive right in. Welcome to one of the most sonically unpredictable bands ever, the voices of Los Angeles, the undying party animals of Hollywood Undead!
Hollywood Undead can trace their origins back to 2005 and a bunch of college friends in LA as a method of combining their hip-hop upbringing with their love for rock and metal. The story goes that when the band was being formed, whoever was in the room and could play an instrument became a member. After some adjustments, this left us with J-Dog, Charlie Scene, Johnny 3 Tears, Funny Man, Deuce and Da Kurlzz (+the short lived tenure of the elusive Shady Jeff). They would share various instruments and all would contribute varying vocals to the tracks too. Their sound was a fusion of hip-hop and metal, heavily influenced by the aforementioned nu metal sound which was still going strong at the time. HU however differentiated themselves from others like Linkin Park or Limp Bizkit by their variety and uniqueness. While most rap metal bands would have a very established sound, HU would vary from pure hip-hop, to more electronic tracks to full metal bangers. The variety was further enhanced by the number of vocalists, each contributing a different approach and sound, mixing rapping, clean singing, screams, growls and more. Combine this with their unique appearances, each sporting a unique and recognizable mask a la Slipknot or Mushroomhead and you have a recipe for success. They first started gaining traction on the then-newly created YouTube and MySpace (damn, remember that?), sharing their songs around and leaving a strong impression with their energetic music videos. Slowly but surely, they made a name for themselves.
HU would make their first splash with their bombastic debut Swan Songs dropping in 2008. This is the band at their purest and most unfiltered. The sound is somewhat crude but the tunes are loud, powerful and ridiculously catchy. The lyrics are vulgar but fun. You can genuinely feel the energy of a group of college friends goofing around making the music they love without any limitations. What stands out is the variety of sound and tone. The songs can rage from pure hip-hop zingers like Everywhere I Go, to anthemic hard rock like Sell Your Soul and slamming metal tracks like the bands crowning tune Undead. It can go from fun party tracks like California and Bottle and a Gun to dark and somber love poems like Black Dahlia or This Love, This Hate. This album has a little bit of everything, which makes it thoroughly enjoyable on a surface level but the brutal honesty and genuine passion that radiates from every song makes it feel truly special. Hollywood Undead had arrived and they were here to make a statement!
As they started to gain traction, they dropped the Desperate Measures live album just a year later, clearly cementing themselves as an iconic live act, combining the best aspects of a metal concert and a hip-hop show something that would only get better to this day! This album also contains some hitherto unreleased material that is just as good as the previous!
There was some turbulence after this moment and unfortunately this would lead to founding member Deuce leaving, but we’ll get back to him later. In the meantime, a fresh new face showed up and would slot right into the gang – the angel voiced Danny, would contribute mainly with his fantastic clean singing and would become an inseparable part of the HU sound. With him in tow, the band would drop their next batch of bangers called American Tragedy in 2011. Exhibiting more of the same, but also an evolution, the metal tracks like Been to Hell and Hear Me Now were heavier and more epic than ever while the party songs like Comin’ In Hot were as spicy and uplifting as ever. In the midst you can also find plenty of emotional declarations like Pour Me or I Don’t Wanna Die that really tug on the heartstrings. The standout track has to be Bullet though, which in terms of sound is an acoustic rock song with rapping over it that would fit right into a car commercial, but this bubbly upbeat sound is contrasted masterfully with the incredibly dark lyrics. It’s a masterclass of what HU can do and this new and improved version of the band was on a clear roll and destined for greatness.
Just two years later, their next opus would arrive in the form of Notes from The Underground. Delivering on the now established sound of the band, this is an extra emotional record that leans more on the serious end of things and is more metal focused that previous albums, but still doesn’t pass up the opportunity to party hard. It feels just like its title suggests, a peek into the lives of the people living away from the limelight, the people in the shadows of society. It’s the anthem of the forgotten and the misunderstood. It’s an honest and finely crafted album that feels like the cozy hug of a close friend that you can tell anything to. Or at least that’s how I feel about it.
By now a bit of a status quo was beginning to form and with a band flourishing thanks to unpredictability, we can’t have that! So it was time to shake things up with their most varied and unique album to date – Day of the Dead released in 2015. This one almost feels like it recaptures the feeling we got back on Swan Songs of a truly unique band that sounds like nothing else in the world. This is what a band sounded like when they put zero creative limitations on themselves. You got headbanging metal like the title track. You got hip-hop bangers like How We Roll. You got club shakers like Party By Myself. You got the trademark brutal honesty like on Live Forever. But if all that weren’t enough, you also have the EDM hit War Child that nobody could have expected to be the party anthem of a generation. Or Usual Suspects, a one-of-a-kind track fusing a ton of genres that stands as one of the best alliances of metal and dubstep ever produced and one of the last embers of the golden age of dubstep before the genre retreated back into the underground. Day of the Dead represents everything there is to love about Hollywood Undead and shows that this is a band overflowing with ideas and never shy of charting new ground.
The last several albums were all massive successes and HU were on top of the world. Unfortunately, the fame did come with a bit of tension, leading to Da Kurlzz unfortunately departing from the band. Now reduced to a five-piece and closing in on album No. 5, the band were up against the ropes. Or were they? Turns out, said ropes only let them bounce back harder than ever, dropping the iconic V in 2017. Exceeding all expectations, this album is a celebration of everything awesome about this band. It has some of the heaviest and moshpit worthy songs ever, like California Dreaming and Renegade. It has some of the most delicious rap rock blends ever like Whatever it Takes and Bad Moon. It celebrates oldschool West Coast hip-hop with sick tracks like Cashed Out and Black Cadillac. It even keeps up the tradition of EDM club classics with Riot. Like, in what universe are these songs all on the same record? The Undead universe, that’s where! HU were on top of their game here and delivered arguably their best album to date. Banger after banger after banger. It’s also the perfect representation of what makes their records so fun – they are so creative and open-minded that listening to this for the first time is almost like gambling. You have no idea what the next track will bring to the table, all you know is that it will be awesome! Pressure can make things crumble into dust but it can also form diamonds and this is definitely a case of the latter.
Seemingly on a never ending roll, riding a bigger and bigger wave, HU were just not slowing down! A few years after their masterclass album, they would come back with even more fresh ideas. The newest record would drop in February 2020 and would be titled New Empire Vol. 1. The band had shown on social media in the interim years that they’d gotten themselves some 7-string guitars and these definitely came in handy here, as this album has some of the heaviest and nastiest riffs ever heard in a HU song, leaning even into djent or deathcore. Legendary session drummer Luke Holland definitely helped with this heavy sound. The lyrics are also mostly serious and brooding. The whole album is almost entirely metal-focused with barely any hip-hop and kept the fire hot from beginning to end, showcasing a whole new dimension of what the band can sound like. However, I had a suspicion that these lads wouldn’t forget their hip-hop roots just like that and given that the album was called Vol. 1, I made the prediction then that Vol. 2 would be almost entirely hip-hop instead, balancing out the deal.
Lo and behold, I was right on the money as New Empire Vol. 2 smacked us in December of the same year. With bountiful features from a variety of popular artists from all kinds of genres (most notably my favourite rapper of all time, Tech N9ne), this album is very rap heavy and is more party oriented and fun compared to its angsty and edgy predecessor. These two albums are a perfect representation of the contrasting aspects of HU’s sound and how these juxtaposed elements can still live harmoniously in the same discography. This one-two punch combo of banger albums definitely made the isolation years a lot easier to tolerate.
Never satisfied and never tired, HU would return triumphantly just two years later and drop their as of now latest opus – 2022’s Hotel Kalifornia. This is a record that shows not just maturity and experience but how comfortable the band are in their own weirdness. They fully embrace their genre-defying sound and present the best of what fans have come to expect. They also never stop innovating and experimenting, adding even more wrinkles to their musical arsenal like elements of alternative rock, pop punk, trap and more. The various members also step out of their comfort zones and explore many varying vocal styles that are noticeably different from their usual forte. The end result is an unbelievable blend of both mainstream appeal and unfiltered experimentation and free expression, all of it full of palpable passion. The songs cover the full spectrum of sound from pumping metal through club banger electro to gangsta rap and everything in between. On top of that, the lyrics also cover the full range of tones and emotions, from heart touching to bottle poppin’. It’s something for everyone. All I can say is, to everyone from Rockstar Games, if Wild In These Streets isn’t on the GTA 6 radio stations, don’t even bother releasing it.
In among all their banger albums, HU have also unleashed a ton of non-album singles, EPs and bonus tracks. I didn’t know where to put them, so here they are. A lot of these are equally as iconic and don’t let up in quality compared to the rest. It’s literally more of the same goodness and I’m all for it.
I always like to cover side projects in these band blogs, so here we go. Remember OG member Deuce? Well, after his departure in 2010, he has embarked on his own solo career. While he hasn’t had the bombastic global success that his band have, he has definitely done well for himself. His musical style is also very similar to the output of HU while still being distinct and different enough so if you enjoy HU’s material, then Deuce’s work should be right up your alley as well.
Thus, we arrive at the grand finale of this Undead adventure. I hope I managed to show you across this blog how much this band means to me. I discovered Hollywood Undead on the internet back in 2007-2008 when they were still relatively unknown and still trying to make an impact. I’ve observed their growth and progress ever since and I’ve been closely following them for years and years. I joined the online fanbase discussing the lyrics and their favourite members (mine are Funny Man and J3T for anyone wondering). For every album release, I was there and I was teeming with excitement. No house party I ever attend goes by without their music being blasted. I have 100% attendance at their shows in Bulgaria. I even ran a Hollywood Undead Facebook fan page at one point. HU and I have grown up together and while both of us are very different from who we were all those years ago, we stayed true to ourselves and the shared love has never waned.
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Let me tell you, watching them become so successful and widely beloved is so wonderful to see. It’s amazing that I can be around the millions of fans they have now and confidently say I was one of the OGs. When a lot of bands reach this level of mainstream success, they either fold under the pressure and commercialize their sound, losing the core that made them unique or they try again and again to recapture the magic of their early albums but fail and have to rely on old hits to stay relevant. Or worst of all, they might be unable to bear the stress of fame and just quit altogether. Hollywood Undead are among the rare examples where none of that happened. Eight albums in and there isn’t a single dud between them. They’ve only grown more and more and show no signs of slowing down. Through their bountiful creativity and open minded approach, they have managed to evolve and expand their sound, allowing them to pull from various audiences, while still retaining the core aspects that made them special from day one. Next year, they will be celebrating 20 years on stage and their success show no signs of slowing down. They also seem to be having fun too, which is great to see. So here’s to 20 more years of rockin’ rappin’ parties and then 20 more years after that. This love will never burn away! For we are...UNDEAD!!!
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