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[l to r]:
Chris Lee Vocals, Guitar Leif Swift Bass Benji Lee Guitar Michael Brueggen Drums |
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1. Rock And Roll Tried |
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"We're SUPAGROUP from New Orleans, Louisiana and we're here to kick your ass." On Supagroup, the high-octane rocker’s first Foodchain Records release, frontman Chris Lee makes this announcement with his trademark blend of bravado and the bluff of a seasoned gambler. Whether he's joking or not, it's a promise made and kept. SUPAGROUP guitarist Benji Lee and Grammy Award-winner Trina Shoemaker produced the album in New Orleans last winter using the tried and true tools of the rock n’ roll trade – guitars and lots of them. The result is as hard, sweet and satisfying as a shot of Jack Daniels neat, but much more enduring. SUPAGROUP’s national debut may just be coming out, but the band’s members are no rock n’ roll rookies. When they released the acclaimed Rock & Roll Tried to Ruin My Life in 2001, SUPAGROUP hit the road with a who's who of American underground rock – Queens of the Stone Age, Supersuckers, Fu Manchu and Drive-By Truckers to name a few. One night at a time, one person at a time, they’ve been gaining fans the old-fashioned way – they earn them. "SUPAGROUP is everything a rock band should be,” praises the Hit List, while New York’s Mass Appeal reports that they are “the aural equivalent of losing your virginity at an AC/DC concert in heaven. On really, really good dope." "AC/DC is only the tip of the iceberg,” acclaims Athens’ FLAGPOLE, adding “There are elements of the whiskey-bent-and-hell-bound fury of the Supersuckers and the sweaty, sloppy enthusiasm of MC5 in the mix.” “If Angus were still young and Axl still mighty as a rose, they’d be in this band,” proclaims the Austin American-Statesman. New Orleans’ magazine OffBEAT offers major kudos, reporting that "only the Dictators have occupied such shifty territory as effectively, loving rock and simultaneously mocking it with their outsized affection for everything rock n’ roll stands for." SUPAGROUP is led by half-Chinese brothers Chris and Benji Lee – Alaskans by birth, New Orleanians by choice, and mother fuckers by an act of God. Just don’t ask them about being distant relatives of Bruce Lee. Chris, the singing, lyric-writing Lee is the big brother, while Benji is the younger, bad-ass guitar-playing Lee. "You've gotta know the blues scale to play around me," Benji declares firmly. With a Gibson SG, Marshall amps, and no fear of the spotlight, he is working single-handedly to revive the guitar hero tradition. "People don't have traditions anymore," he says, "and they don't often understand rock n’ roll. They rock, but they don't ‘ROCK N’ ROLL.'” Real rock n’ roll needs chops, craft, a sense of humor and heavy rhythm. The latter doesn't happen without a bass player, although countless bands today might think otherwise. Those bands would all benefit from having a Leif Swift, who joined when an earlier, “crappy” bass player was fired. "I'd seen the band before," he says, "and I knew right off those guys were going somewhere." Drummer Michael Brueggen is the newest band member, and his gift for precise power has kept him in demand in recent years. Before SUPAGROUP, he played with the legendary Blackula, Syrup, and Rock City Morgue. |
[BIO cont'd] "These guys are more than just my band though – they're my friends. They're who I call to drink with," Chris explains. As rock n’ roll traditionalists, booze is a part of the band's beating heart . . . but not in a bad way. "I Need a Drink" came about while Chris was bartending a “dead shift,” pouring drinks for retirees when their welfare checks came in. "One guy was always rattling off one-liners, and one day he said to me, 'Y'know, work is the curse of the drinking man,' and I thought, 'Thank you' and a song was born." Booze is not only part of the band's lyrical concerns, but when they're off the road, it's their employer; Chris is co-owner of The Saint, a bar in New Orleans' Garden District, and both Brueggen and Benji tend bar there. As the band's name and song titles suggest, rock n’ roll is the band's number one concern. “The music is the only thing that really matters. There’s only three things we really sing about anyways: sex, drinking and rock n’ roll." "'Rock and Roll Star' is about the shit you go through from the start, why you go through it, and what you're after," Benji says. "My dream is never working a day job again," states Chris. "To make it, you have to be prepared to live like an animal, and not for a year but for ten years. You have to ruin the rest of your life with nothing to fall back on," he says laughing. "Cat Soup" looks comically at just how far you might have to go to rock n’ roll. More than anything else, SUPAGROUP is fun. "Our songs are about having fun, and they are fun," Chris says. This explains the band's impatience with an unnamed nu-metal band in "One Better." He sings, "What makes you think I give a damn / Why your daddy made you cry?" As Benji succinctly puts it, "When music is whiny, I tune out." Rock n’ roll may appear easy, but it is hard sweaty work – not just brute force and ignorance. Songs like SUPAGROUP's don't happen by lucking across a riff and pounding it into submission. "Woulda Been Nice" didn't fall out of a box of Count Chocula. In "Bats Out the Belfry," Chris sings, "Resistance is futile," and where the songs are concerned, a lot of care is taken to make sure resistance is not only futile but damned near impossible. As Chris sings in their enduring anthem, "Rock and roll tried to ruin my life," but it only made his better, the same way it makes ours better. SUPAGROUP is a celebration of ROCK N’ ROLL. |
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[click to hear track]