In a new twist on rockabilly and Goth, bands such as East Lansing’s Eight Ball Grifter are combining ghoulish and dark lyrics with traditional rockabilly sounds and punk rock to create a new genre touted as Gothabilly.
Traditional rockabilly music includes fast tempos that are still danceable, with lyrics about the darker side of life. Gothabilly mixes that up with dark but amusing lyrics about vampires and zombies and a Gothic look.
“You take twangy rockabilly and put a real emphasis on the spooky imagery,” said Knuckles, Eight Ball Grifter’s guitarist.
A New York record label is putting together its second compilation of Gothabilly music, called “Necropolis.” The label is holding a CD release party and Web cast Saturday at CBGB in New York. The Web cast features eight bands, including Eight Ball Grifter. The cast is at 9 p.m. on www.popwire.com.
“In these bands we see that they’re more influenced by mid-80s punk and the English Gothic scene,” said Kevin McQuain, the compilation’s producer.
The fast, danceable rhythms of this music fill a void for Goth fans and allow rockabilly bands to experiment.
“I think that traditional rockabilly doesn’t allow bands to show their contemporary influences,” McQuain said.
McQuain’s label noticed that rockabilly bands tended toward this sound and decided to make a compilation of it.
“We found a number of bands that were really excellent that weren’t getting a lot of attention, and they had a sound that was different enough to be called a new genre,” he said.
Eight Ball Grifter isn’t devoted exclusively to this genre, but it comes close. The band wants to project a more fun image.
“Drinking, girls, cars, seriously,” Knuckles said about the band’s songwriting topics. “Drinking, almost every song’s got a reference to getting tanked.”
The band’s influences include the Misfits, Social Distortion, British pop and outlaw country, along with the traditional rockabilly, Knuckles said.
“We’re aren’t quite that Goth,” said singer and bass player Wade Royale, an MSU alumnus. “Most of the bands are pretty Goth-looking. We might dress up that way for one of these shows, but we just happened to write a couple of songs that seemed to fit with it.”
“Vampires,” a spooky tune about vampires, and the other, “Spit on My Grave,” appear on the “Necropolis” compilation.
Royale said the band’s lyrics on the compilation tend toward a dark sense of fun and gallows humor.
“The lyrics are evil and darker,” he said. “Actually, ‘Spit on My Grave’ is about how many strippers I’ve dated and didn’t know they were strippers. It’s kind of a joking kind of song.”
