THE TOMBSTONE BRAWLERS

The first time I saw the Tombstone Brawlers was at New York Decay's annual Drop Dead Festival at The Knitting Factory. Originally, I was a little disappointed with the lineup at the Drop Dead Fest. One of my favorite "Horror Rock" bands had been excluded and I was thinking of skipping it altogether. By the same token, Alex and Polina have always been really nice to me, and they always give a portion of the proceeds to charity. Between that, and the fact that you just don't get gatherings like the Drop Dead Festival in SoHo very often, I decided to at least show my face. I was glad I did.

I got there just as The Tombstone Brawlers were taking the stage. The stage and the surrounding area were decorated with skulls, bones, spider webs and theatrical blood. After all, this is Psychobilly. Psychobilly is a term originally used in the Johnny Cash song One Piece At A Time. Nowadays, it refers to a music genre that incorporates country, rockabilly, blues, surf, punk, and old time rockn'roll. Of course, it wouldn't be psychobilly if not for the lyrics. The lyrics of most psychobilly songs will refer to blood, guts, murder, mayhem, and horror films.

As quickly as the band started playing, the crowd was whipped into a frenzy. Women began dancing and guys began slamming as the band started playing "Demonatrix." Vocalist Charlie Splatterhead stepped onto the stage looking like he just got murdered in a gang fight. As rowdy as the crowd got, it was never quite good enough for Charlie Splatterhead. In between songs, which included titles like Valley Of The Dead and Die You Zombie Bastards, the eloquent Mr. Splatterhead was constantly exhorting his fans to do more. "If I don't see you punks in the pit movin' for this next song, I'm gonna start bustin' heads with this mike stand!" This seemed to work. With each song they played, both loyal followers and first timers alike had the place rocking even harder.

A good friend of mine got me upstairs to talk to the guys after the show. In addition to Charlie Splatterhead on vocals, the band is made up of Pete on Bass, Regis and Zacher on guitars, and Paul on drums. These guys have come together from the remnants of other bands such as Broken Heroes, Los Gatos Locos and the Bristles. The current lineup, in place since 2002, have been busy touring Europe, playing gigs all over the northeast, and recording their album Scary Movies. Great sounds, tongue in cheek humor, and even a cover of the Queen classic Fat Bottom Girls make this an excellent cd.

As this article goes to print, the Tombstone Brawlers are in the studio working on their next cd. Tower of Moonshine will include songs like Meat hook Lover and House Up In The Woods. As soon as it's on the market, I'll be sure and get a copy. I'm also keeping an eye out for their next NYC gig. - Soho Journal

It's hard to visit the Garden State and not notice the Tombstone Brawler's name plastered on almost every show flyer. The band has been rocking the East Coast for seven years with their brand of full-on rock n' roll and creepy psychobilly lyrics. Life In A Bungalo caught the Tombstones at a Civil Unrest Wednesday show at Connections. The band tore the place up with a more traditional rockabilly style (think Americana Punk) rather than the motorpsycho death metal that's been exported out of Europe lately. Highlights included a note for note translation of Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" from metal to honky tonk. Check out the band today (6/25) at the "South Orange Peel Out" and July 16 at the Lucky Cat in Brooklyn, NY.

There are five guys in the band. Doesn't that break some sort of law of psychobilly? Why go that route?
Regis: Cause we rule. Seriously, it’s because we need two guitarists for the type of music we want to play, and it gives us a much fuller sound.
So how did you guys get together?
Regis: Well I’m the only original member. We started like seven years ago, and it was more of a surf rock 'n' roll type thing, because I was listening to real traditional music. Members started changing and we finally got a real rhythm section and a great lead singer that showed up to practice all the time. I work great with Zacher and together we do great guitar work. We just kind of know where the other is going.

Did you always play a psychobilly style?
Regis: Chuck always did. I originally started out in Broken Heroes, but I always like rockabilly and blue grass. It’s what I grew up with. Chuck was in one of the first psychobilly bands out of Seattle called Los Gatos Locos, and when we got him, that’s when the band started to sound like a psychobilly band.

Pete: You can label us psychobilly but we do a lot of real down to the roots music. If you were going to take a few styles of music and describe what we do there’s a rockabilly influence, a psychobilly influence. There’s a blue grass and surf influence. If you look at the original psychobilly like the Meteors, there was a lot of surf influence that a lot of the modern psychobilly bands bypass. I think it belongs in the music and we try to keep it in there.

Having grown up in New Jersey, I clearly remember the boom of punk rock bands in the mid-‘90s. There were shows every week and you could always find a good time somewhere. How do you guys think the New Jersey scene has changed in the last ten years?
Regis: To me, a lot of the people that tend to come to our shows, at least in Jersey, are a lot of the older crowd that used to be involved in the old hardcore scene in Jersey. We have a lot of the old Pipeline kids that come to our gigs. We are really proud of what we do, and we definitely are a psychobilly band, but we try not to pigeonhole ourselves by playing with psychobilly bands all the time. We like to play with punk rock bands. We get more of a response out of a punk crowd than we do from the psychobilly crowd because that’s more geared around a haircut then it is about the music. The scene now… You know I can’t really say what’s going on with the younger crowd because we don’t really play for a younger crowd that often. We play bars, and for most of the older crowd that use to be around back then that are still hanging around.

Paul: Punk is dead. Around 1994, there were a ton of bands from New York like the LES Stitches, the Blanks and all those great fucking bands, and when they broke up, punk died in NY. We’re just doing what we love. It’s great that there is a scene in Texas, but we’re not following a trend, we are just doing what we love.

Pete: We’d like to see a scene grow in New York. You know what’s great about LA? In LA you can get 900 people at a psychobilly show. I’ve seen it. In New York you can barely get 100.

Chuck: And that’s a good draw around here even for a big psychobilly band. Even when the Nekromantix and the Horrorpops came through town with Roger Miret, doing that punk vs. psycho tour, there were 450 people there. A band like ours can go out to Hollywood and co-headline a gig and 750 plus kids will come out. There’s money to be made on the west coast and there’s a good time to be had by all.

Pete: Regardless, this is where we are from and we are trying to build something here. I’ve seen it grow over the last year and I hope more people start coming to shows and more people get into this type of music. We are offering them something different then going to see your average three chord punk band, which barely intersets me any more. There are exceptions to the rule, but we are hoping that a scene develops and it’s happening slowly.

Chuck: We are trying to get out there and just play as much as we can. Just get it out there, run it up the flagpole and see what happens. We’re having a good time,

What do you guys have going on right now? Are you touring behind an album?
Chuck: We’re not tourin - Life in a Bungalo Digest

An excerpt from a larger article:

Momentarily at a loss after Cinema Strange finish, I wander back upstairs to see who’s on the main stage now. And I walk right in to a classic Drop Dead juxtaposition, for I find the Tombstone Brawlers doing their thing, in full belligerent effect. They’re another of Drop Dead’s many psychobilly bands, and without question the most psycho of the lot. A bunch of blokes, all built like brick shithouses, all wearing blue jeans, work shirts, and stick-on Halloween tat, roar aggressively through some beaten-up jalopies of songs, while their fans - who seem to comprise a platoon of boisterous gentlemen exactly as brick shithouse-like as the band - stage mock-fights in the moshpit. At least, I hope they’re mock fights. At any rate, you can almost smell the testosterone in the air. This band, clearly, is all about boys being boys, and doing it as loudly and as pugnaciously as possible. As I cautiously approach the stage to take a few photos - apologising in my best Limey pantywaist style as I gingerly ease myself into the fight club zone - the Tombstone Brawlers launch into a song entitled ‘Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight’. The vocalist leers hideously into the crowd. ‘I wanna see some BLOOD!’ he yells, and it seems there’s no shortage of mosh-heads ready to take him at his word. Coming straight after Cinema Strange’s pixie performance art show, this is just a bit too much for me to take. I make my excuses and retire graciously to the bar.

- Starvox