Hard Core and More
By Shellie Branco, The Bakersfield Californian
May 28–With all that’ll be at Saturday’s all-ages Rockin’ Roots Fest at Stramler Park — more than 100 bands on eight stages, a wrestling troupe, a pinup girl contest — there’s one thing promoter Tim Gardea warns you shouldn’t go looking for: Tupperware.
But homemade crafts, clothes and purses? Yes. That is rootsy.
This year’s headliners are punk/hip-hop Kottonmouth Kings, deathcore Suicide Silence and post-hardcore Scary Kids Scaring Kids.
Catch the festival warm-up Friday with pop punk band Cinematic Sunrise.
We chatted preshow with Kottonmouth Kings vocalist Brad "X" Xavier, who moved to Tehachapi seven years ago to raise his family, and Mitch Lucker, lead singer of Suicide Silence, who wrote a snarling but poetic song about his grandma’s osteoporosis.
We also caught up with the teenage Millionaires, an Orange County electropop group who can throw a dance party but enjoys mocking the plastic girls on the floor. The female trio’s raunchy, catty lyrics — "Acrylics on with orangey skin/That lipo made you really thin" from "I Love Money" — have drawn comparisons to early girlie hip-hop L’Trimm ("Cars With the Boom") and Peaches.
You might remember the latter’s "(Expletive) the Pain Away" from the awkward "Lost in Translation" strip club scene.
MILLIONAIRES
Dani Artaud, 20
Sisters Allison Green, 16, and Melissa Marie Green, 19
THEIR START
Melissa: We’ve been together for eight months. The day we posted our first song on MySpace is the day we wrote the song and recorded it (as a joke).
Our producer Marc Maxwell makes our music and he takes a lot of influence from the ’80s. His biggest influence is A-ha.
He was my friend from a couple years ago and we started our music on GarageBand and he was a big supporter, came out to our shows. He took one of our songs and remixed it and it was just amazing.
We write the lyrics and stuff. Our influence is each other. We make inside jokes. Other people don’t really understand our humor. That’s why all three of us get along.
Dani: We’re not really artists. We’re just three girls and we like to have fun and write random (expletive). We never thought we’d be in a band.
AUDIENCE
Melissa: I’d say older middle school to high school, 12 to 17. Our new songs are trying to get an older crowd in there, too.
We want it to be catchy, catchy things they’ve never heard before.
We’ve had young fans at our shows. Some of them are, like, 8. And with their mom.
FUTURE
Melissa: We’re not allowed to say (which labels) right now, but hopefully by the end of summer we should have a record deal.
KOTTONMOUTH KINGS
NEW ALBUM
Brad Xavier: We’re working right now on The Green Album, the 10th studio, full-length album. There’s one called "Stand," which I really like. Kinda about standing up for something or you’ll fall for anything. People pretty much sleepwalk through life. Of course, this whole world has been hijacked by warmongering oil tycoons … We’re at the mercy of interest rates. You can be a victim or take your life into your own hands and control your own destiny.
DIVERSE FAN BASE (hippies, punks, hip-hop kids)
When you come to a Kottonmouth Kings show, you have all different walks of life. Part of that is the band stands for personal freedom. Musically, we dip in and out of musical styles: hip-hop, punk, mellow acoustic, reggae.
I’m sure there are some people who really gravitate toward the mellow songs and some people really like the aggressive stuff. The bottom line, we grew up in SoCal, hugely influenced by punk rock.
SUICIDE SILENCE
INFLUENCES
Mitch Lucker: If I listened to death metal all day long, I’m gonna sound like every other metal band, so I try to have complete outside influences.
When we’re writing or jamming, I try not to write anything that sounds like what we’re doing, so the ideas I have are completely outside of the genre.
I listen to a lot of instrumental music and basically the complete opposite of death metal, very calm instrumental or hip hop … instrumental with no vocals. Just music that can inspire my brain, not having someone talk.
INSPIRATION
I’d rather have people have an open interpretation to any song. They can interpret it one way ’cause it hits them a certain way, but then someone else interprets the song 100 percent differently, but gets a meaning out of it that’s amazing.
The song "Girl of Glass" is about my grandmother. People say, "Weird. What is that about?" She died of a bone disease. She was really fragile. Every time she hit something, she would break a bone.
("Girl of Glass" excerpt: "In this crumbling existence, like a champagne glass/Held together at its last seams.")
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN LYRICS
(On "The Price of Beauty," about a sadistic plastic surgeon) If you’re ignorant enough to sell yourself and get a ton of plastic surgery, that song’s for you. That’s all personal opinion right there. Most girls really like that song. Most girls hate really fake bitches.
Sometimes people relate to it. Sometimes they say that song’s crazy. MTV turned it down because of the content. MTV is the pro-plastic surgery channel.
"Bludgeoned To Death" made it to the air because we made it like a kindergarten video. We made it so they couldn’t say no to it. It was way too violent.
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