Pick up a copy of Scatterbrain's debut album, Here Comes Trouble, and you'll probably find a label slapped on the disc instructing record stores to file it in the "rock" section.
Of course, with all the slap bass on the album, it would make just as much sense to file it under funk. And considering its bludgeoning rhythms, the album wouldn't be out of place in the thrash bin, either. Moreover, with lead singer Tommy Christ chanting paeans to his penis, the LP would be a welcome addition to any rap section as well.
The labeling of the album as "rock," it seems, is just a futile attempt by Scatterbrain's In-Effect label to classify a band that remains stubbornly unclassifiable. Scatterbrain, formerly straightahead speed-metal group Ludichrist, is just the latest in a recent assault of label-defying acts. Like 24-7 Spyz, Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, this Long Island five-piece represents the happy marriage of rock's white (thrash and metal) and black (funk and rap) influences.
"Basically, Scatterbrain now is a band with no boundaries," stresses Christ in a recent telephone interview. "On the next record, if we want to do a country ballad, we can, because the parameters we've set for Scatterbrain are actually no parameters at all. We can do whatever we feel like doing, and it will still be Scatterbrain."
The band's genre-bending sound isn't confined to the alternative-music fringes anymore. MTV darlings like Faith No More and the Chili Peppers have shown that you can stretch rock's boundaries and sell records at the same time. "When Faith No More's record first came out, everybody was saying, `Oh, this is too different. This is too weird,'" recalls Christ. "But once they listened to it for a while, they didn't perceive it to be that way anymore. Now it's become an accepted style, which is good for bands like us."
The downside of the Faith No More-Chili Peppers success story is that it's given metalheads the impression that copping from L.L. Cool J or James Brown is now the thing to do. It's easy to glibly stick a rap chorus or popping bass line into the mix, but for most metal bands, it's just a pose. While not exactly defending these would-be rappers and funkateers, Christ argues that exploitation is to be expected with every new rock 'n' roll trend.
"A lot of bands look in the local music papers today, the Musicians Wanted ads, and see `Bass Player Wanted for Funk-Metal-Rap Band,'" he laughs. "And a lot of people are going to jump on it. But I think that the good ones will make it, and the ones that are just trying to cash in and rip everybody off won't."
What with the stiff competition between bands proficient at both head-banging and butt-shaking, Scatterbrain has had a hard time setting itself apart. It's true that the group doesn't boast the smarts or innovation of Faith No More. Neither does it have the pump-muscled energy of the Chili Peppers. But what Scatterbrain does have is one of the mightiest funny bones in all of rock 'n' roll, and the frequently gut-busting Here Comes Trouble is proof.
Two standouts from this stellar joke platter are "I'm With Stupid" and "Mr. Johnson and the Juice Crew." "Stupid," a hysterical play on the Z-movie classic The Thing With Two Heads, tells the tale of a pompous intellectual who gets his just deserts when a brain-dead head sprouts from his shoulder. "The Juice Crew" takes aim at the bloated braggadocio and "Mr. Big Dick" mentality of many current rappers: "Mr. Johnson is a giant; dare I call him `God?'" Let's just hope Schoolly-D never gets around to covering this one.
But the star side-splitter here has to be the Fifties doo-wop-thrash mutation, "Don't Call Me Dude." The cut profiles a guy who turns into a homicidal madman at the mere mention of the D word. "Don't Call Me Dude," which has the dubious honor of being one of the most requested videos on MTV's Headbangers Ball, is now the band's signature song. Christ had hoped the track would help stamp out what he considers to be the most annoying word in the American vocabulary. But he admits the tune's had the opposite effect.
"Lately it happens a lot outside a show, walking to the bus or just walking through a club, I'll hear, `Hey duuuuude!'" sighs Christ. "They always expect me to turn around and punch them or something."
Compared to funk-metal peers like 24-7 Spyz, a band that's jackhammering racial barriers with its music, Scatterbrain's songs are fairly disposable stuff. There is one, token serious-minded tune, "Outta Time," which blasts an old target (teen drug abuse) in forceful, noncliched terms. But even Christ admits the album as a whole was meant to be more entertaining than enlightening--and he makes no apologies for it.
"There are bands out there saying important things," he notes, "and that's good for them. We want to have a little more fun with it. And the musicians in this band are so good and the songs are so well-written that you can't really write us off as a joke band either, which we were kind of worried about. I mean, the last thing we want to be thought of is the "Weird Al" Yankovic of funk-metal."
Scatterbrain will perform at Compadre Stadium on Saturday, September 22, with the Dead Milkmen, the Rave-Ups, and the Aquanettas. Gates open at 5:30 p.m.
The doo-wop-thrash mutation "Don't Call Me Dude" profiles a guy who turns into a homicidal madman at the mere mention of the D word.
