About Cky
It takes CKY guitarist/producer/agitator Chad I Ginsburg about one minute on the phone to sum up his band.
"Can you hear this? What's that sound like?"
The sound of tinkling water fills the background.
"That's me, pissing on the face of rock'n'roll once again."
So maybe "subtlety" isn't a good word to describe CKY. This is fine by them. After all, this is a band with the world's loudest, angriest and savviest fan base, the CKY Alliance. This is a band that can draw 20,000 kids to a mall in Minneapolis for a one off concert two years removed from their last album, with nothing to promote. This is a band that was personally selected by Axl Rose himself to be the opener on that recent Guns N Roses tour ("It was fun ... while it lasted," says drummer Jess Margera. On a positive note, the two bands did bond on a strip club adventure, but we'll let them tell you that story.)
The problem is, outside of the group's fervent fan base, you may not know CKY. an Ã…nswer can be found will change that.
"This is the best fucking record of the year," claims CKY frontman Deron Miller, and he's not boasting. Well, he is, but he's on to something. The Philadelphia area band's third album is a step forward and a refinement of everything that makes CKY unique. It's aggressive without being metal, melodic but not pop, and it features a level of production that would make Phil Spector proud if the Wall of Sound guru had an appreciation for muscular guitar riffs and four on the floor beats.
In the two years CKY spent working on an Ã…nswer can be found, several of the band's so called rock contemporaries have taken notice of the group. "We've got such a distinctive guitar sound, that it's pretty obvious when someone rips us off," he says, laughing.
The two year recording process for an Answer can be found was a combination of the band's hectic touring schedule and Miller's insistence on getting things exactly right. "We actually had to shut ourselves off from the world for a while," he explains. "I got rid of my TV and radio. I couldn't handle people talking at me. I wanted to concentrate, and take our time. I think bands take recording their records lightly which is dumb, because your albums are going to outlive you, and you're going to be remembered by that. This album is a definite reflection of our dedication."
Miller's forced isolation led to some of the album's darker, but finest, moments. The growling, near death metal masterpiece "Sniped" follows the final moments of a sniper, while the stunningly and surprisingly beautiful album closer "Don't Hold Your Breath" centers on one's man decision to take his own life ... but save his friend in the process. Then there's the album centerpiece, the epic "Tripled Manic State." That track follows a man who undergoes radical surgery to correct his depression , only to have his anger multiplied by three.
"I always felt like a prisoner in my own body, and that my emotions would peak so much, but my body wouldn't have the energy to exert this anger," says Miller. "So I decided to write what would be the worst scenario where you get so angry you can't even move. As you can see, I try not to write about emotions and situations that have been beaten to death in song before. I want people to feel things they don't feel very often."
Despite the darker concepts on the record, CKY stresses the positive aspects of the band, including a fervent belief in individuality and finding one's own way. "I get a lot of inspiration from our lyrics," says Ginsburg. "It's all about not letting someone get in the way of your momentum. It's about forward change and progression."
Miller concurs. "A lot of this album is about destroying the evil in your life," he says. "Like our new track 'All Power to Slaves,' this is about questioning the majority, even if you're outnumbered. You still move forward, and you say what you want to say." He laughs. "It's better than talking about 'Stacy's Mom' or whatever."
One essential component of CKY's sound originates from Ginsburg's radical production techniques. "I got my start with this band working as an engineer and producer, and that's why I'm still manning the boards," he says. "The producing and mixing has been like an instrument for the band it's a defining quality to what we do. The way the sounds and textures are layered, you could think you're hearing almost anything." He pauses. "Actually, I don't know why other bands don't produce their own stuff, because their music should be a direct representation of what they want to hear. If these bands actually had talent, they might do that. I tend to trust a band more that produces their own stuff, rather than relying on some random guru who wants to fill up the radio waves with shit no one wants to hear anyway."
The band's gruff and extremely blunt demeanor may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but it's also inspired the world's greatest fans the CKY Alliance. The Alliance, with over 250,000 members, has supported CKY throughout the band's entire existence they're the reason the group continues to play to over 4,000 kids per show and sell thousands of records per week ... even when there's no album to promote. They're proud, "crazy" (Ginsburg's words) and not ashamed to take the media to task (just ask Rolling Stone after an ill informed bad review of the group's last record Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild, literally hundreds of fans protested and complained, sparking a feature on the group).
"I love them, and I'm proud of the Alliance," says Ginsburg. "And I don't think any band has ever interacted with its fans like we have. We've answered over 8500 questions from fans on our web site over the past few years that HAS to be the world's longest interview. We should call the Guinness Book of World Records."
Margera agrees. "We have the craziest fans," says the drummer. "I've seen some weird things some girl from the Alliance licked my blood after I cut myself drumming. And, boy, do they complain. They can see through trends, and they go on their site (ckyalliance.com) and just call it out, whether it's emo or a guy wearing girl's pants or whatever is trendy now. They're smart."
You can also thank CKY's fans for the album title. According to Ginsburg, the band gets an unusually strong reaction when they play one of their older tracks, "96 Quite Bitter Beings."
"All of our fans always shout back the line 'all we ever wanted was an answer' from that song," he explains. "That inspired this title. We just love our fans to keep finding answers, keep asking questions. I think the title is a message of hope, it's a quest getting more questions, finding more answers. When that happens, you resolve more, you get more change, and you have more fun. And that's all we want."(From Ckymusic.com)
"Can you hear this? What's that sound like?"
The sound of tinkling water fills the background.
"That's me, pissing on the face of rock'n'roll once again."
So maybe "subtlety" isn't a good word to describe CKY. This is fine by them. After all, this is a band with the world's loudest, angriest and savviest fan base, the CKY Alliance. This is a band that can draw 20,000 kids to a mall in Minneapolis for a one off concert two years removed from their last album, with nothing to promote. This is a band that was personally selected by Axl Rose himself to be the opener on that recent Guns N Roses tour ("It was fun ... while it lasted," says drummer Jess Margera. On a positive note, the two bands did bond on a strip club adventure, but we'll let them tell you that story.)
The problem is, outside of the group's fervent fan base, you may not know CKY. an Ã…nswer can be found will change that.
"This is the best fucking record of the year," claims CKY frontman Deron Miller, and he's not boasting. Well, he is, but he's on to something. The Philadelphia area band's third album is a step forward and a refinement of everything that makes CKY unique. It's aggressive without being metal, melodic but not pop, and it features a level of production that would make Phil Spector proud if the Wall of Sound guru had an appreciation for muscular guitar riffs and four on the floor beats.
In the two years CKY spent working on an Ã…nswer can be found, several of the band's so called rock contemporaries have taken notice of the group. "We've got such a distinctive guitar sound, that it's pretty obvious when someone rips us off," he says, laughing.
The two year recording process for an Answer can be found was a combination of the band's hectic touring schedule and Miller's insistence on getting things exactly right. "We actually had to shut ourselves off from the world for a while," he explains. "I got rid of my TV and radio. I couldn't handle people talking at me. I wanted to concentrate, and take our time. I think bands take recording their records lightly which is dumb, because your albums are going to outlive you, and you're going to be remembered by that. This album is a definite reflection of our dedication."
Miller's forced isolation led to some of the album's darker, but finest, moments. The growling, near death metal masterpiece "Sniped" follows the final moments of a sniper, while the stunningly and surprisingly beautiful album closer "Don't Hold Your Breath" centers on one's man decision to take his own life ... but save his friend in the process. Then there's the album centerpiece, the epic "Tripled Manic State." That track follows a man who undergoes radical surgery to correct his depression , only to have his anger multiplied by three.
"I always felt like a prisoner in my own body, and that my emotions would peak so much, but my body wouldn't have the energy to exert this anger," says Miller. "So I decided to write what would be the worst scenario where you get so angry you can't even move. As you can see, I try not to write about emotions and situations that have been beaten to death in song before. I want people to feel things they don't feel very often."
Despite the darker concepts on the record, CKY stresses the positive aspects of the band, including a fervent belief in individuality and finding one's own way. "I get a lot of inspiration from our lyrics," says Ginsburg. "It's all about not letting someone get in the way of your momentum. It's about forward change and progression."
Miller concurs. "A lot of this album is about destroying the evil in your life," he says. "Like our new track 'All Power to Slaves,' this is about questioning the majority, even if you're outnumbered. You still move forward, and you say what you want to say." He laughs. "It's better than talking about 'Stacy's Mom' or whatever."
One essential component of CKY's sound originates from Ginsburg's radical production techniques. "I got my start with this band working as an engineer and producer, and that's why I'm still manning the boards," he says. "The producing and mixing has been like an instrument for the band it's a defining quality to what we do. The way the sounds and textures are layered, you could think you're hearing almost anything." He pauses. "Actually, I don't know why other bands don't produce their own stuff, because their music should be a direct representation of what they want to hear. If these bands actually had talent, they might do that. I tend to trust a band more that produces their own stuff, rather than relying on some random guru who wants to fill up the radio waves with shit no one wants to hear anyway."
The band's gruff and extremely blunt demeanor may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but it's also inspired the world's greatest fans the CKY Alliance. The Alliance, with over 250,000 members, has supported CKY throughout the band's entire existence they're the reason the group continues to play to over 4,000 kids per show and sell thousands of records per week ... even when there's no album to promote. They're proud, "crazy" (Ginsburg's words) and not ashamed to take the media to task (just ask Rolling Stone after an ill informed bad review of the group's last record Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild, literally hundreds of fans protested and complained, sparking a feature on the group).
"I love them, and I'm proud of the Alliance," says Ginsburg. "And I don't think any band has ever interacted with its fans like we have. We've answered over 8500 questions from fans on our web site over the past few years that HAS to be the world's longest interview. We should call the Guinness Book of World Records."
Margera agrees. "We have the craziest fans," says the drummer. "I've seen some weird things some girl from the Alliance licked my blood after I cut myself drumming. And, boy, do they complain. They can see through trends, and they go on their site (ckyalliance.com) and just call it out, whether it's emo or a guy wearing girl's pants or whatever is trendy now. They're smart."
You can also thank CKY's fans for the album title. According to Ginsburg, the band gets an unusually strong reaction when they play one of their older tracks, "96 Quite Bitter Beings."
"All of our fans always shout back the line 'all we ever wanted was an answer' from that song," he explains. "That inspired this title. We just love our fans to keep finding answers, keep asking questions. I think the title is a message of hope, it's a quest getting more questions, finding more answers. When that happens, you resolve more, you get more change, and you have more fun. And that's all we want."(From Ckymusic.com)
