A great many eyebrows were raised (except Lukas Rossi’s- the botox saw to that) earlier this year when the first Rock Star Supernova recordings began to leak through the band’s syndicated reality show. For a band that draws from the holy trinity of ‘80s metal’s hair-raising bands, their music was, by all accounts, a bit gay.
In hindsight, it’s hardly a surprise. The band hired as producer hit-maker Butch Walker, who took on the gig as a personal favour to drummer Tommy Lee- the pair briefly worked together on Lee’s 2005 solo album
Tommyland: The Ride.
Mötley Crüe’s debut album
Too Fast For Love owed more to The Sweet and The Raspberries than it did Mötorhead, while bassist Jason Newsted was a member of one of the most famous male pop groups of all time,
Metallica.
Guitarist
Gilby Clarke may be best remembered (if at all) for his brief stint with Guns N’ Roses, but he’s been releasing underappreciated power-pop gems for over twenty years, beginning with cult power-pop outfit Candy. He did the neo-glam thing a full ten years ago with his solo release
The Hangover, while Walker’s own 2006 solo effort harked back to the days when Bolan and Bowie ruled the cosmos with powerful but slightly effeminate flying machines and nobody batted an eyelid (lest their gold paint crumble.)
Their collective experience is brought to bear on
Rock Star Supernova. Lukas Rossi is a singer of another era and an entirely different musical background; he’s less glam rock as he is alternative rock, a product of the post-grunge era where fun is frowned upon and dissonance is mandatory (am I overstating the point?) Tricky though the situation is, they appear to sidestep any “collisions” by separating the album into two parts: the first half is made up of six straightforward glam rockers, albeit with a glossy modern edge, while the latter half sees the band diversify a little, grazing modern rock pastures and taking a few more calculated risks.
For the most part, the first half of the CD is solid and well-written, if a little too calculated and pristinely-produced. Tommy Lee’s charming rocker ‘Leave The Lights On’ recalls Marc Bolan, with a crunchy 12-bar blues riff and playful (dumb) lyrics.
”Come on and leave the lights on, if that’s your thing, it’s better for the cameras if you know what I mean.” Yes, we all know what you mean, Tommy. You want to be a lighting technician. For the most part, the drummer is in his element; he and Newsted seem naturally suited, and his deceptively intricate beats show brief glimpses of the form which saw him labelled the best drummer in rock in the mid-to-late ‘80s.
Lee and songwriting partner Scott Humphrey also contribute the album’s only piano ballad, the slick two-chord wonder ‘Can’t Bring Myself To Light This Fuse,’ which (while ever so slightly sickening) sees Rossi demonstrate his diversity as a vocalist, even as the processed strings section threatens to break into 3 Doors Down’s ‘Here Without You.’ Gilby’s influence is more subtle, his baroque sense of melody apparent on the opener ‘It’s On,’ as the main guitar melody is doubled with electric harpsichord, and ‘Valentine,’ while second single ‘Be Yourself (& 5 Other Clichés)’ matches ‘London Calling’-style rhythmic chord stabs with a sleazy rock chorus straight from the Skid Row songbook.
Butch Walker’s influence is also strong to bear on each of these tracks, hardly surprising considering he helped write all but one track. ‘It’s On’ opens with an “ooohing” melody similar to his own ‘When Canyons Ruled The City,’ he takes a verse for himself in ‘Be Yourself,’ while his scratch vocals seem to have had an effect on the new singer, as his “R. Kelly on sedatives” slow-singing style is mimicked by Rossi in many instances. The vocal similarities between Walker and Rossi are less than likely a coincidence; if the band had a clear idea of the type of vocalist they were after before they began their search, then it was crucial they found a writing partner with a similar range and melodic sense.
Inevitably, however,
Rock Star Supernova tapers out in its second half, as the tension between singer and band becomes significantly less constructive. ‘Headspin,’ originally written by Rossi for his primary group Rise Electric, has shades of the Deftones and Ours, but the repeated chorus call of
”You make my head spin” becomes redundant long before the track plays out. ‘Valentine’ is a small step up, Gilby providing bright Beatles-y chords to compliment Rossi’s Jeff Buckley-esque moans, while ‘Social Disgrace’ sounds like an discarded outtake from Mötley Crüe’s
Generation Swine, an industrial-tinged heavy rocker that’s reminiscent of U2’s ‘Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me.’
The album highlights aren’t difficult to pick out. Closer ‘The Dead Parade’ illustrates the first successful merger of heavy metal with Culture Club, oddly resulting in something resembling the modern incarnation of Guns N’ Roses, with a pop-gospel chorus of
”Welcome to the Dead Parade, where no-one marches to a leader / Welcome to the hand grenade that is my life, pick up the pieces.” The other stand-out track, ‘Underdog,’ features the guitar riff that served as the theme to this season of Rock Star. The complete song is strongly reminiscent of Soundgarden, both melodically and vocally and by cleverly running the vocal melody counter-to rather than with the guitar hook, they avoid the familiar pit-fall of over-stressing and playing out the main melody.
As can only be expected from a band that chose their lead singer because he was the most likely to put out, Rock Star Supernova are not looking to re-invent rock n’ roll, or anything like it. It's like any other side-project, a low-risk circle-jerk between three semi-idle rock stars while their main projects are on hiatus. It's no classic (and luckily it's no Blind Faith either), but
Rock Star Supernova at least stands as an example of (sort of) spontaneity in modern music, where heavy subject matter was set aside in favour of simply making a “fun” record.
Can you imagine Brandon Flowers making a record for the sake of making a record? He’s too busy writing a concept record about his internship at the Weather Bureau.
