Music
Check This Band Out: Romero
It’s time to bring back another band for all of you to check out! For this edition, I’ve got Madison, WI stoner metal band Romero, who whipped up one of the most creative press releases I’ve seen in a long time. They stated the “11 Reasons Why Romero is Your New Favorite Band”, which I’ve included below because it’s rather clever and pretty funny!
If you’re a fan of Baroness and Mastodon, I’d definitely recommend checking these guys out. Oh, and did I mention that their full length album is free? You can snag it from the Bandcamp player below.
11 Reasons Why Romero is Your New Favorite Band
11. Beards, man
Yes, beards are cool, but in the band’s hometown of Madison, WI, beards are also necessary. All of Romero’s facial hair is free-range, locally-grown and 100% sustainable.
10. Mixed Media
Romero releases their music on a variety of cool & unique media. In addition to specially packaged CDs, the band has recently released limited edition colored vinyl records & even old school cassettes with 3D glasses & artwork!
9. Everything is FREE
Romero give everything away, all the time. All of their music is available for free download. Their new album, Take The Potion, has spread, virally, throughout the world and has already been downloaded many tens of thousands of times. The band offers free stickers and buttons at every live show and often gives merchandise away to fans via mailorder and social media contests.
8. Art for art’s sake
All four members of Romero are very talented graphic artists & designers. From the logos, to the T-shirts, to the album artwork, to the physical packaging design itself, the band members create all of it. Bass player, Patrick Hotlen & drummer / vocalist, Benjamin Brooks also regularly do freelance design work for major corporate clients as well as other artists of all shapes & sizes.
7. The Organ
An organ is a part of the body that has a specific function. The full-size, vintage Hammond organ (and rotating Leslie speaker cabinet!) on a Romero stage certainly has a specific function…to rock the room from the front to the back! While an organ is certainly not common instrumentation for a band playing heavy music…for Romero, the sound fits perfectly. Think heavier Deep Purple…yeah, that’s it.
6. Yesterday’s Technology, Today!
Technology is great, but Romero prefers the vintage sounds of the 60s & 70s. Frontman, Jeffrey Mundt works part-time in a vintage guitar store when not on the road, so the band members regularly dip into history to find the right tone. The band currently employs multiple RARE 1960s PLUSH amps and a wall of cabinets containing 28 speakers…How many speakers?!? Organ player / guitarist, Tim Consequence, is a veritable musical MacGyver and is constantly building, rebuilding or restoring something amazing.
5. The Live Show
Prepare to be stunned. Romero’s dynamic live show is a moving experience, to say the least. Green lights, bright white lights, smoke, video screens and stacks of amps highlight four men who never stop moving. Intense, visual, in the moment Rock-N-Roll. Romero has a multi-city tour planned for later this year.
4. The Cool New Video
“Compliments & Cocktails” is the first song on ROMERO’s new album, Take The Potion, so it is only fitting that it should be their first video, as well. Directed by the band’s organ player, Tim Consequence, this dark and psychedelic romp is sure to please voracious fans looking for the visual component of Romero.
3. Pro Pot
Romero are high ranking soldiers in the ongoing fight for the legalization of marijuana. The herb has always played a big part in the band’s creative processes, so to ban weed is to ban creativity and that’s not cool, man. The band keeps up with all of the current struggles state-to-state and constantly asserts their activism. Spark, puff, pass, Take The Potion!
2. Band Of Drummers
All four members of Romero are damn good drummers. Seriously. It’s cool.
1. Indie Cred
Romero may be a new band, but they do not sound like a new band. There is a good reason for this…longevity! Each member of the band has a long history of experiences to bring to the table. All of the members of the band started recording & touring at a very young age. Patrick & Jeffrey certainly remember paying their dues in those early days of pre-internet touring in a broken down van without cellphones!
Synthwave outfit GUNSHIP has released a new official music video this morning for their cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” featured on the soundtrack to Corin Hardy’s (The Nun, The Hallow) supernatural horror film Whistle.
To bring it full circle, Corin Hardy directs the music video himself, incorporating previously unseen footage from Whistle. More specifically, the new music video features an extended sequence from the film.
This collaboration builds on GUNSHIP’s longstanding relationship with Hardy, who previously contributed vocals to the band’s track “Cthulhu.”
“Working with Corin is a total dream,” said GUNSHIP. “He’s an old friend who we bonded with over our love for cinema and music, and we were honored to have our song featured in the film. After the Whistle premiere, we were chatting over a pint, and he told us about a beautiful pseudo ‘one shot’ sequence he was heartbroken to lose in the final film. We suggested resurrecting it and using it as a music video. Corin got it immediately, and the result is perfect. It’s heartbreaking, haunting and pure 80s noir soaked.”
Corin Hardy added: “I wanted Whistle to feel like a horror movie I might have watched around the late 1980s, alongside films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Lost Boys, and The Breakfast Club. Films steeped in teen-angst and heightened feelings. Music was such a huge part of creating the romance of those cinematic worlds. Gunship’s synth-drenched cover of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ was always top of my list. Their unique heart-on-your-sleeve sound was the perfect choice for a key moment in the movie. To come together post-release and create this extended music video is simply the cherry on top. Dan, Al & Al (Gunship) have provided the film a real companion piece in the world of Whistle… it makes me want my MTV again!”
It’s a fitting collaboration, as music serves a narrative purpose in Whistle. Music, the director told Bloody Disgusting, was a means of immersing viewers in this world and its characters’ perspectives. Hardy even touched on this particular track: “So in a way, the music you’ll listen to is effectively what Chrys is listening to, which is her dad’s record collection. Then there are other songs like the Gunship track, which is a Cyndi Lauper cover, which is more like Rel’s [Sky Yang] music. It comes in when we have a sequence in Rel’s romantic heartbreak moment. So yeah, I made a character list of who might be listening to what.”
Whistle sees a misfit group of unwitting high school students confronted with mortality when they blow a cursed Aztec Death Whistle, setting a terrifying chain of events in motion.
Dafne Keen (Logan, “The Acolyte“), Sophie Nélisse (“Yellowjackets”), Sky Yang (Rebel Moon), Jhaleil Swaby (“Supergirl”), Ali Skovbye (Grizzly Night, “Firefly Lane”), Percy Hynes White (“Wednesday”), Michelle Fairley (“Game of Thrones”), and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead).
The supernatural teen horror movie is available to stream on Shudder now.