Burning Brides |
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Wed. September 25.2002 7:55 AM EDT |
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Burning Brides Out To Incinerate 'Cute Rock'Philly trio's debut album receiving wide release this week. by Corey Moss |
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Burning Brides (V2 Records) |
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When Burning Brides began recording their debut album in 1999, the Philadelphia rock trio felt music was in an ugly place. "We were sick of turning on the television and the radio and being disgusted by everything around us musically,"
Of course, grunge eclipsed that round of boy bands and hair metal, and Burning Brides believed another swing of the pendulum was overdue. So like fortune tellers, they titled their album Fall of the Plastic Empire. Now, three years later, that Nirvana-influenced (Bleach era, that is) collection is being widely released at a time when Rolling Stone is declaring "Rock Is Back" and the hottest bands on the radio don't have DJs. Still, Coats doesn't believe music's plastic empire has totally fallen. "Bands like the White Stripes and Strokes and Hives, everyone is calling it rock, and it is rock, but to me it seems more like cute rock," he explained. "It's good, quality music — I just think something needs to come along, and I'm not saying it's us, that will make kids grow their hair out long and smash their car through the cafeteria of their school. Something that has a little more sexuality to it and a darkness. That's something that has been missing since Nirvana left us." But aren't the Vines the new Nirvana? "The Vines are wearing it on their sleeves a little too obviously," Coats mused. "I like Nirvana too, but please, don't embarrass yourself. They're falling into a trap of being Nirvana Light. Paper cutout versions of what is to come. But it's definitely a step in the right direction." Burning Brides share a love for Nirvana with the Vines, but their music is more in line with Queens of the Stone Age and ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, two bands they just finished touring with a few days ago. When he phoned Monday from his Philadelphia home, Coats was hungover and staring at mountains of empty beer bottles. The night before, Burning Brides threw a welcome-home party for themselves to celebrate the end of "one of those dream tours" and a feature article published that day in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Neither Coats nor bassist Melanie Campbell, his longtime girlfriend, are actually from Philadelphia. The couple met at the prestigious Juilliard performing-arts school in New York, where they decided to start a band anywhere but New York. "It was too expensive," Coats said. So the duo traveled the country searching for the right city to set up shop. When they stopped in Philly to visit a friend, they fell in love. Coats boasted of finding a three-bedroom house with a basement in the middle of the city for only $750 a month. "It enabled us to start making noise," he said. Burning Brides recruited drummer Mike Ambs, but differences in music taste caused friction, and the night before the band was to play a local awards show, Coats told Ambs they were unhappy with him. "He didn't show up the next day," Coats said. "Jason [Kourkounis of Hot Snakes and Delta 72] happened to be there, and I taught him the song in like five minutes. He's been in the band ever since. And that was in the middle of the bidding war. We had a three-hour practice and hit the road and had presidents of labels at all of our shows." Burning Brides signed with V2 Records, which is re-releasing Fall of the Plastic Empire (previously issued by File 13 in 2001) on Tuesday. The album, particularly songs like "Rainy Days" and the U.K. single "Glass Slipper," pounds hard but isn't afraid to pop either. Coats, whose vocal influences range from Jim Morrison to Iggy Pop, punctuates the aggressive tracks with charmingly honest lyrics. "You f---ed me over, and I just got a couple words to say to you and this is one of them," Coats says on "Stabbed in the Back of the Heart" before belting out, "You got the tongue of a snake." "It doesn't take me too much to be angry at somebody or get disappointed with something," Coats said. "That intro was completely improvised. I was thinking of the Pixies' ['Tony's Theme'], when Kim Deal was like, 'This is a song about a superhero named Tony.' " While his songs seem to tell stories, Coats said he actually writes single lines at a time and then later strings them together, much the same way Kurt Cobain pieced together his anthems. "The cool thing about Kurt is he would write a sincere line and then feel a little to vulnerable about it, so he would follow it up with something really dark to f--- with it or mangle with the image," Coats said. "That's a big part of what we are. Even our name is a fusion of something dark and beautiful." Burning Brides have their second album written, but they won't record it until next summer, after they are finished supporting Fall of the Plastic Empire with several tours of the U.S. (the first with the Anniversary) and Europe, where they happen to be the buzz band of the moment. "We already toured there once, and we might as well have been Nirvana," Coats joked. "They love American rock and roll. They'll eat it up and throw it on the cover of NME and call it the next big thing." Fortune telling. How appropriate. Burning Brides/Anniversary tour dates:
This report is from MTV News. |
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