Psychobilly

Psychobilly
Other namesPunkabilly
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsLate 1970s California, New York, Southern United States
Regional scenes
Europe (particularly England, Germany, and Denmark), United States (particularly southern California), Japan, Brazil, Canada
Other topics

Psychobilly (or punkabilly) is a rock music fusion genre that fuses elements of rockabilly and punk rock.[1] It's been defined as "loud frantic rockabilly music",[2] it has also been said that it "takes the traditional countrified rock style known as rockabilly, ramp[ing] up its speed to a sweaty pace, and combin[ing] it with punk rock and imagery lifted from horror films and late-night sci-fi schlock,... [creating a] gritty honky tonk punk rock."[3]

Psychobilly is often characterized by lyrical references to science fiction, horror (leading to lyrical similarities to horror punk) and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other topics generally considered taboo, though often presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion. Psychobilly bands and lyrics usually take an apolitical stance, a reaction to the right- and left wing political attitudes which divided other British youth cultures.[4] It is often played with an upright double bass, instead of the electric bass which is more common in modern rock music, and the hollowbody electric guitar, rather than the solid-bodied electric guitars that predominate in rock. Many psychobilly bands are trios of electric guitar, upright bass and drums, with one of the instrumentalists doubling as vocalist.

Psychobilly has its origins in New York City's 1970s punk underground, in which The Cramps are widely given credit for being progenitors of the genre and the first psychobilly band to gain a following.[5] The music gained popularity in Europe in the early 1980s, with the UK band The Meteors, but remained underground in the United States until the late 1990s.[6][7] The second wave of psychobilly began with the 1986 release of British band Demented Are Go's debut album In Sickness & In Health.[8] The genre soon spread throughout Europe, inspiring a number of new acts such as Mad Sin (formed in Germany in 1987) and the Nekromantix (formed in Denmark in 1989), who released the album Curse of the Coffin in 1991.[9] Since then the advent of several notable psychobilly bands, such as the US band Tiger Army and the Australian band The Living End, has led to its mainstream popularity and attracted international attention to the genre.

  1. ^ "Definition: Psychobilly". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
  2. ^ "Definition of Psychobilly". The Free Dictionary.com. Retrieved September 7, 2013.
  3. ^ "Psychobilly". About.com. Archived from the original on March 21, 2016.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Downey, 77 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Remington, Alexander F. (February 6, 2009). "Lux Interior, 62 - Co-Founder of the Cramps, An Early Psychobilly Band". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 23, 2017. Lux Interior ... was lead singer and co-founder of the pioneering psychobilly band the Cramps, ... which formed in the early 1970s, [and] were the first band to gain a following in psychobilly ....
  6. ^ Downey, p.77. "Before Tiger Army started touring in support of their 1999 debut, the psycho scene in the U.S. was practically nonexistent. There were fans in a few towns who hung with the rockabillies or punks, but psycho was their little imported secret."
  7. ^ Downey, p.78. "European record labels like Nervous (U.K.) and Crazy Love (Germany) were crucial as psychobilly continued to be virtually unnoticed in the U.S."
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Downey, 78 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Downey, 80 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).