ARTIST INFO

The Black Lips debut UK album is titled Good Bad, Not Evil and will be released on Vice Records, September 17th. The title Good Bad Not Evil is inspired by the Shangri-Las song “Walk Right Up To Him (Give Him A Great Big Kiss).

The album was recorded in their hometown of Atlanta at The Living Room studios aided by the band’s friend Ed Rawls, a bartender at the nearby Drunken Unicorn bar, just around the corner from where fellow Atlantans Outkast work.

Black Lips formed when, as teenagers, after-school friends Cole Alexander (guitar / vocals) and Jared Swilley (bass / vocals) signed up their friends Joe Bradley (drums / vocals) and Ben Eberbaugh (guitar). After swiftly becoming one of the Atlanta underground’s most talked about bands, and along the way being banned from numerous venues for their wild live shows, the group released albums and seven inches on different underground garage labels like Bomp and In The Red. Tragically, Eberbaugh was killed in a freak traffic accident but the band carried on with New Orleans-born Ian St Pe. These events would go on to influence the song “How Do You Tell A Child That Someone Has Died”, a stand out track on Good Bad, Not Evil.

 

The album ranges from dirty psychedelic blues songs about Holy World War 3 - “Veni Vidi Vici” - to outright pop hits like “Katrina” (written the night the band found out that the Hurricane of the same name had devastated New Orleans) and “Bad Kids” (based around certain band members’ experiences with juvenile detention centres). There’s also the bruised, tender album closer “Transcendental Light”, a song written by Ian inspired by a family death.

Cole Alexander told us: “On this album we were really inspired by ourselves, especially our first two albums. They really changed the way the whole game was played. I think our work really transcends all genres and continues to influences us all on a daily basis”

For us, the album’s a fresh, exciting take on the wildest records of bands like 1960s Peruvian punk bands like Los Saicos, The Stones, 13th Floor Elevators and the raw pop exuberance of Cavern-era Beatles. It’s probably the most out-there, funnest album you’re going to hear all year. Don’t sleep on it.

 

The Black Lips line up of Cole Alexander - Vocals & Guitar, Joe Bradley - Vocals & Drums, Jared Swilley - Vocals & Bass and Ian St. Pe – Guitar return to the UK in November to play the following shows.