Dead Boy Productions

 

What Is Psychobilly?

Tony Slash of The Rocketz

Psychobilly can be traced back to a lot of accidental influences from the early 70’s. There are bands that a lot of people will give credit to; for instance The Cramps comes up a lot. I have been in this scene a long time and from what I understand The Cramps influences were from rockabilly and they just did it their own way, very deviant, and twisted, and wicked good!! No, the very first Psychobilly was intentionally and precisely created by The Meteors. They were the pioneers of Psychobilly and die-hard Meteors fans will argue that only The Meteors are pure Psychobilly. Fair enough. But like all genres of music, the good ones evolve becoming mutated forms of the original. Now, when I was but a wee lad, Psychobilly bands were clean toned with not much distortion going on, until Demented Are Go came along. Bands to name a few (not leave out many great classic bands but there are so many) Batmobile, The Sharks, Frenzy, Guanabatz. Psychobilly was all attitude, it was defined by how you approached your music, in the sound and the lyrics and the live performance. These bands, previously mentioned, now are identified as “neo” for neo-Rockabilly. Other terms used now are “Pyscho” which I like because newer bands these days are born of punk bands, or metal bands with no rockabilly influence what so ever with the only connection being the big bad stand up bass. Oh, yeah, and the hair!

Not everyone is going to agree with my opinions, but you younger cats make sure you do your homework before arguing with me, I was there 79, 80, 81 etc. I suffered through being the ONLY Psychobilly in high school, and the only way you got good records was mail order from the UK. There were a few good record stores here like Bleiker Bobs, who stocked some titles. In any case, I don’t claim to know it all and my historical references can be off a year or two. I’m not an expert; I’m only a rock and roller!

There is room for all the new subgenres of Psychobilly in my opinion, the more the merrier. I don’t have time to stand back and judge what is qualified as good and bad; I’m too busy trying to keep The Rocketz from sucking! So there, I will probably write longer columns but it’s the Holidays.

You can email me your opinions if you like, but I won’t argue, I just delete!