Bloodhound Gang 'Hefty Fine' album

The Bloodhound Gang just doesn't give a damn. That is to say, collectively, their music reflects the motto, which is printed in every album, “No reason to live, but we like it that way.” Their music is asinine, appealing to the basest of juvenile instincts. They are lewd, vile, and degenerate. Through their lyrics they manage to offend everyone: they are culturally insensitive, totally politically incorrect, anti-social, ignorant, nasty, sullied, sordid. They even attack their own ilk. They have no greater aspirations and have no intentions of evolving into a better band. They hate their fans, and their fans hate them. Their fan base is a bunch of socially-ill adjusted freaks. Even their official website - which serves as their fan club - is dubbed the “Bloodhound Gang Cyber Hate Club”.

Guess what? Sign my ass up! After experiencing a performance that left me shaken, disturbed, and strangely aroused, I am now a member of that fan base and love everything repulsive about the BG. Despite it all, or perhaps because of it, they put on one awesome live show. Their extreme irreverence is real, and it plays great. Their genuineness comes through, even on their recordings, and their authentic and honest shitty disposition brings back the joy of being trashy. It is a beautiful thing.

The saga continues with the release of Hefty Fine (Geffen Records), due to be unleashed on the public September 20, 2005. It delivers more of the sardonic yet contemplative and wretched yet prophetic (and pathetic) music they have come to be known for. It will be their fourth studio album in nine years. This kind of depravity takes time.

I want to make something clear. To look at the whole of the Bloodhound Gang can be deceiving. Collectively, they may appear to be five different versions of sophomoric morons. Closer inspection, however, reveals so much more. Separate the current BG into its component parts and what emerges is a complex picture. As individuals they are: a creative genius who may be emotionally lost and disconnected and who would probably prefer living on the dark side of humanity; a big, brutish mulatto buck who is a self-described “hillbilly, redneck, cracker”; a purportedly trailer trash “wigger” who seems uncomfortable with his boy band good looks; a reformed sexually deviant perv who is now a devoted family man; and a chap who has literally come back from the depths of hell - put there by feverish substance abuse which began when he was in Little League. That is to say that lead singer Jimmy Pop, bassist Evil Jared Hasselhoff, D.J. Q-Ball, guitarist Lüpüs Thünder and drummer Willie The New Guy, as sole human beings, are much more than their communal public personas.

Thank God the public only gets to see the sum of the parts. Together they are the shit and absolutely much more fun.

Now listen more closely to the music, and what you hear are complex analogies that herald American modern pop culture, a mélange of musical styles and cultural references that can either leave you laughing, gasping, or just clueless.

Remember their imbecilic 1999 smash hit “The Bad Touch”? “You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Yeah, you remember. That song was written by frontman Jimmy Pop late one night while perusing cable. That song was their biggest hit, catapulting them into the international spotlight. It landed them guest appearances on national media like “The Tonight Show.” It allowed them to buy houses. It led to outrageous sexual encounters with tarts from all over, including women that wouldn’t even have let them deliver a pizza to their house in high school. It led to worldwide tours. And then the band got completely burned out and went into hibernation and the music died. There were no rehearsals or recordings or creative brainstorming sessions.

Formed in 1992, their official debut was Dingleberry Haze, released in November, 1994. The album sold well over 100 copies, and yet financial success still seemed to somehow elude the group. The ensemble signed with Columbia Records in March, 1995 and released their first full-length album, Use Your Fingers: sadly ticket sales increased with the deal, but record sales did not. The band lost members and their fucking plumb record contract.

By March 1996, BG consisted of Jimmy Pop, Lüpüs Thünder, Evil Jared Hasselhoff, D.J. Q-Ball, and Spanky G. The five went back into the studio and after three months of chain-smoking, binge-drinking, and girl-swapping, One Fierce Beer Coaster was released under the former Cheese Factory Records, now called Republic Records. A successful tour led to Coaster being re-released by Geffen Records later that year.

The album's success was impressive, and led to the group's first “real” American tour and first stint in Europe. The Eurotrash crowds absolutely loved BG, leading to their 2000 release Hooray For Boobies, from whence “The Bad Touch” comes. Shortly after the album was recorded, pixie sized drummer Spanky G quit the group and was replaced by Willie The New Guy, completing the make-up of BG today.

In 2004 the band emerged from its hibernation, still (surprisingly to many) riding a successful crest. To date the band has sold over five million albums. Last year the band was thrust back into the public eye again when their song “Fire Water Burn” was featured in the Michael Moore documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The BG was in the throes of a resurgence of their notoriety and popularity. The group returned to Europe during the late summer, and now refreshed and renewed (so to speak) they are ready to share their whimsical vision again with Hefty Fine.

Perhaps because their music is so eclectic, or perhaps because a lot of booking agents don't know what the hell they are doing, BG has performed with a dazzling, dizzying array of bands. They have played over five hundred live performances throughout the Americas and Europe with artists from every conceivable genre of popular music. What I don't get is how anyone could not be impressed, seduced even, by their stage performance. To experience a BG performance is to know that there is a God, one who (thankfully) freely allows evil to spawn. Their performances are fabled, breeding all types of urban legends. Some are true, some are not.

Like the one about the wedgie and the tampon. It used to be standard practice for the band to give willing audience members a souvenir with lasting effects - wedgies so rough that they feel like they had just been fisted by Edward Scissorhands. One such party girl from Providence, RI claims that the wedgie she received was nasty enough to send her tampon into the recesses of her vagina, causing the feminine hygiene product to be lost in the netherworld. “Not true,” asserts Evil Jared. What really happened? BG members speculate that she got drunk, then fucked, and forgot to remove the plug. “It's not our fault,” states Evil J. “She needs to blame some dude up in Rhode Island.”

And then there is the one about Jimmy Pop and Evil Jared throwing up, and then regurgitating said throw-up, back and forth into each other's mouths. This one is true. Now this is what I'm talking about! It is refreshing to see artists who are not playing the diva role and will do whatever it takes to give the people what they want. (By the way, when asked did he swallow, Pop was indignant, stating, “That would be gross.”) It is that kind of unselfish fan devotion and appreciation that endears us so. But because society sucks, BG now functions under a series of restrictive mandates, imposed through high powered insurance policies, various international civil and criminal laws, prohibitions on certain public conduct, several lawsuits, and a couple of arrests.

As for the music - on the surface what may appear to be the most scurrilous and nonsensical words are actually almost brilliant in their composition. All emerging from the warped mind of Jimmy Pop, one either gets it, and ergo really gets it - or doesn't get it and still gets it anyway. Confused? If you are open to it, whether you get the double entendres and clever, witty commentaries on modern life or not, you are going to enjoy BG music. And how could you not. Their repertoire contains a little something for everybody, which makes it kind of hard to classify them. It is clear that their material is objectionable and their antics filthy. It is also clear that it is just feel good, debaucherous music to party through life by, played by unskilled musicians who just want to earn a few bucks and live comfortably. Nothing more, nothing less.

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Bloodhound Gang - Hefty Fine