UNCLE ACID AND THE DEADBEATS with DANAVA at Lee’s Palace (529 Bloor West), Sunday (September 28), doors 8 pm. $18.50. HS, RT, SS, TF.
If you’ve only been exposed to Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats’ music, you’ve probably only picked up on a fraction of the Cambridge, England, psych metal band’s darkness.
Sure, the apocalyptic guitar onslaught nods to Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath, a band they had the honour of touring with last year. And the lyrics evoke Alice Cooper creepiness enhanced by atmospheric recordings and Kevin Starrs’s high-register vocals. But Starrs is just as influenced by the Kinks, the Beatles and the Ronettes.
“I wanted to do something that was a balance between light and dark,” he says during a late-night call to his London home. “The idea of mixing heavy dark riffs and dark lyrical content with melodic two- and three-part harmonies, I thought that was a unique way to make music.”
The imagery, though, is a mind-trip to a more evil realm. A visit to their website reveals the band’s fucked-up side: a murder and serial killer obsession, video of dancing naked ladies and orgies, gory violence toward both men and women, and other things straight out of B movie exploitation films. In this world of intense political correctness, it’s all a bit startling.
“That’s true, but turn on the news and all you hear about is murder and death and destruction,” explains Starrs, “so we’re just reflecting that in a more concentrated, violent way. But we’re not endorsing serial killers or anything. That’s the fictional aspect of it, which comes out of my love of horror movies.”
Has anyone ever made a fuss?
“It’s funny you should say that. We did a European tour recently and had visuals on a screen behind us. Footage from the Vietnam War, Bloody Sunday in Ireland, the Kent State massacre. Really horrible things. But there was also footage of topless women, and a woman wrote to us about that. I find it strange that she took offence at that rather than the other things. If people are offended by nudity, it’s a bit weird to me.”
Listen to the band’s three full-lengths, especially 2013’s stellar Mind Control (Rise Above), a mightier-sounding and even more tuneful beast than their 2012 breakthrough, Blood Lust, and the ultra-rare Volume 1, and you’ll discover tenderness beneath the evil. Starrs’s vocals, for one, are far too melodic to be menacing.
“That’s the idea. If the Devil were to make music, I think he’d make it in a way to lure you in rather than with some sort of extreme death metal.”
carlag@nowtoronto.com | @carlagillis
