Saturday, June 2, 2007

Maylene and the Sons of Disaster


Every once in a while a band comes out that totally makes you feel like that 13-year old that’s just discovered Heavy Metal for the first time. A band that’s so good that you just rediscover what is so great about music all over again. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster is one of those bands for me, so much so that I don’t even know where to begin talking about what’s so great about them.
I guess like all great bands it’s really about the music primarily. With Maylene if that was all they had going or them it would be way more than enough. This is a band that you simply can’t categorize, any tag that you put on them points at elements of their style but not even close to fully encapsulating the band. Southern? Yup. Hardcore? Yeah, Hair Metal? Well yeah, there’s some of that too. That’s part of what’s so amazing about this band, they are truly doing something that is unique. It’s almost like Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Van Halen took their stuff to a point, and Maylene picked up where both left off and added some of their own personality and just went from there.
To make a bolder statement I truly think that Maylene is the next step in the evolution of Southern rock. At the risk of sounding like a snotty Rolling Stone writer, I think that Southern rock has really not progressed that much since Skynyrd’s demise in 1977. Sure you’ve got your .38 Specials, and your Molly Hatchets, and your Georgia Satellites, but most were just putting their own stamp on a tried form of music. Then in 2005 here comes Maylene.
While the band gets comparisons to Skynyrd quite frequently, I think the main similarity is both of the bands realness. Maybe that’s just part of being southern, I don’t know but it’s there nonetheless. I’ve got to admit, and if you’ve read the rest of my blog you already know this, I’m kind of a rube myself. Totally not kidding, my first grade class had 24 kids in it and I took my first driving lesson in my grandpa’s farm truck out in a pasture. The thing was so rusted out that you could see the ground going by beneath your feet while you were driving it. The first car I ever owned was a beat up Camero, and I spent many, many high school nights at parties in barns and metal buildings. Anyway I understand where Maylene is coming from. In the video for “Tough as John Jacobs” the guys are having a party in a barn, wearing Motley Crue t-shirts, having a cookout and swimming in the pond. I also think that like Lynyrd Skynyrd, they aren’t really trying to change anything or push any boundaries, but regardless, that is what’s happening just by them being true to who they are and trying to make the best music they can.
We did the interview with the Maylene guys behind the main stage at Cornerstone. I had never noticed before but there is a creek that runs through about 200 feet behind the back of the stage. The guys said they wanted to do the interview down by the creek because it felt more like home so we took the handheld and shot by the water.
The interview was one of the funniest ones we’ve done throughout the production of the film. As I said before these guys are just real. There is utterly not a shred of pretense about these guys they’re just who they are. At one point one of the guys, I think it was Josh, just goes “I gotta pee,” so he turns around into the creek and takes a wizz. No joke. We just kept on with the interview.
As you can imagine, the guys were hilarious. One of the first questions I always ask is what the artist’s first impression of Christian rock was. In this case I said, “what’s your first recollection of Christian rock?” Immediately Josh says, “what does recollection mean?” Sitting here typing this almost a year later, I’m still laughing.
We’ve always intended that the end credits of the doc, would be a series of funny moments from interviews and the production, and I think that Maylene will be featured prominently in that portion.
Sample dialog: “we’re from the south and we talked funny.”
Awesome.
Seriously though I think the best part of talking to these guys was when I asked about how things had been with other bands. Maylene, for all intents and purposes, is a general market band. They play Warped tour and were recently listed at one of AP magazine’s bands to watch but at the same time are very up front about their faith. When I asked them how the reception from the general market kids were, they said “awesome” and basically related that as long are you are real with who you are people will respect it. As simple a statement as this seems, it’s what every band that came before them struggled to attain.
My prediction right now and you can quote me on this. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster are the next big thing.

3 comments:

Ash Greyson said...

I love Maylene and it pains me to see you label them as the next big thing. That is not the KISS of death, it is the sloppy french deep tongue, tonsil hockey el smoocho de muerto. Poor guys. Here is the short list of things that Hudson has labeled the next big thing:

1. Ishtar Conventions
2. Frankie Goes to Hollywood
3. Windows Millennium Edition
4. The Atari Jaguar (video game system)
5. Queensryche's 2nd single (after Silent Lucidity)
6. Uwe Boll (Google him)
7. Pluto Nash
8. George Clooney as Batman
9. Reversible toilet paper
10. SPAM flavored massage lotion

Tim Hudson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tim Hudson said...

Uwe Boll will punish you in the ring. No kidding.
I still think people don't fully get the nuances of Ishtar. Beatty is brilliant.