Who would think that a little extra flower power could get a rock-and-roll band kicked out of Gandhi’s country? While there’s certainly nothing passive about the Black Lips in their music, live shows and personal lifestyles in general, its resistance to comply with conservative Indian law during a show in Chennai forced the members to flee the country this past January.
“It was a cultural misunderstanding that led up to us having to leave the country,” said bassist and vocalist Jared Swilley. “We didn’t see eye to eye on everything. … I’m glad we went; it was an amazing experience. I’ve never been anywhere like it. But it was just a series of bad events.”
This “cultural misunderstanding” was a combination of things: a sketchy outside tour manager, who “brought us to really odd places,” Swilley said, and a final show in Chennai that featured an onstage kiss between band members Cole Alexander and Ian Saint Pe (something that’s happened on a regular basis in past live shows), and Alexander briefly mooning the audience who actually seemed to like it (another something that’s happened on a regular basis in past live shows). Drummer Joe Bradley kept the beat during the hijinx. After a hasty exit from India, they traveled straight to Europe, before returning home to Atlanta, and have since resumed their relentless touring schedule.
Although the Black Lips have played in 27 countries so far and are hoping to ratchet that number up even more with future plans to tour China, Indonesia and Thailand in the fall, it’s now in the middle of a U.S. tour that lands it in Los Angeles, playing the El Rey on Friday.
The band has had a reputation for putting on a wild show ““ the now notorious concert in Chennai is certainly no exception. The Black Lips have been known to urinate, vomit, stage dive, set their guitars on fire and make out with each other during their shows, but these antics have subsided as they’ve gotten older.
“Basically we were wild animals with no parents,” Swilley said. “We were just dumb and kind of young and didn’t know how to play our instruments well. I don’t know why we did it … ““ to be funny, I guess?”
The Black Lips released “200 Million Thousand,” its fifth studio album, in February, and it certainly maintains the retro-1960s garage-rock sound it’s known for. The band sounds like a snotty combination of British Invasion bands like The Animals, with hardcore punk like The Germs. Swilley said he admires the ’60s aesthetic that encompasses his band because of the organic sound it allows.
“Stylistically and sonically, the ’60s is kind of like the pinnacle of technology compared to today,” he said. “It’s not that I hate (modern technology), I like computers and the Internet and stuff like that, but as far as audio and video, it just looked and sounded better in the ’60s. It’s more pure. Tape and phonograph records just sound better.”
The band tags its music as “flower punk.”
It might not make perfect sense at first, but after listening to a few songs from any part of its roughly six-year, five-album catalogue, the phrase proves to aptly describe the sloppy fusion of unfiltered punk and a sweeter, more romantic side.
“We’re a punk band, but we’re not like the tough guys,” Swilley said. “We also like love songs and psychedelic music and flowery things. Wimpy things.”
This embrace of flowery, wimpy things can be heard in the ode to friendship, “I’ll Be With You,” off the latest album with the lyrics, “You’re my friend / We’ll stick together till the end / What else is there for a buddy to do?”
The members of Black Lips met during their high school years in Atlanta and bonded over a love of punk rock, skateboarding and cigarette-smoking teenage rebellion.
The band was formed “out of a lack of anything better to do,” Swilley said. “We thought bands were cool and wanted to be in one. It was kind of like the leather, motorcycle bad-ass thing to do.”
Over the years, despite the exposure to 27 different countries’ cultural and musical offerings, the members have stayed true to their love of the original music they enjoyed as younger teenagers.
“We’ve learned a lot of new stuff along the way but when I was 14, I loved the Ramones and Chuck Berry and The Germs and The Rolling Stones, and I love it all to this day,” Swilley said.