Is Rock Music Dead in America?
This Band Says “Not So Fast”
Okay, to answer the (rhetorical) question: No, rock is not quite dead in America. But it’s on life support. People who grew up on the rock bands of the '60s and '70s are fond of grousing about the state of things today and have plenty of reason. The music went kinda flat a long time ago. Even metal, where virtuosity still matters, is full of copycat bands, many of whom sound too much alike. In the U.S., at least, we are living on past glory.
If you look at the headliners of major rock festivals over the last several years, let’s just say they are getting long in the tooth. The Foo Fighters are considered one of the younger bands, and they’ve been a thing for 29 years (!) Pantera? Megadeth? The Doobie Brothers? The Eagles, for chrissake????? Are the roadies lugging around portable oxygen? This is not the sign of an art form with a future.
Should we just write the obituaries and move on? I’d say write them but keep them in the drawer for now. There is still a pulse. In the 2000s, the U.S. gave us Halestorm, the Pretty Reckless, and My Chemical Romance, to name three of the better ones. Canada has given us Unleash the Archers, which straddles old-school rock and power metal.
Many, perhaps most, of the really good younger groups are metal bands. That limits their mainstream impact, but they’re giving it a serious go, and I think they count as rock, or at least some of them do. Old-school rock may have ceded the spotlight to “alt-rock,” whatever that is, and hip-hop, but it’s not going without a fight.
The best news? The pipeline includes a couple of really young, really good bands whose members are still mostly teenagers.
I’ve written several times about the dazzling young Mexican band The Warning. They are a throwback power trio with echoes of Cream and the chops to back it up. They also happen to be siblings. Check these out:
To The Warning, I think we have to add Liliac. They are also a family band, composed in this case of five brothers and sisters. Think of the Partridge Family but with actual siblings, not actors. And a lot darker —they play hard rock and affect a vampire persona. Why not? Their dad, Florin Cristea, grew up within sniffing distance of Dracula’s castle in Transylvania, and the band’s name means “bat” in Romanian.
They immigrated to the U.S. from Romania before the youngest ones were born. Florin works in the music business in Hollywood and encouraged the kids to learn to play instruments. It was his way of keeping them out of trouble. He produces hip-hop records, but his kids, interestingly, found themselves drawn to rock and metal (kudos to them!), and he went with it.
They started off learning their craft by playing covers of rock classics and soon found themselves busking to growing crowds on the Santa Monica Boardwalk near Los Angeles.
Here’s what that looked like:
“Enter Sandman” (2017, cover of Metallica)
This song seems to be an obligatory rite of passage for aspiring hard-rock and metal bands.
Personnel (with ages):
Guitars: Samuel Cristea (18)
Drums: Abigail Cristea (17)
Bass and Vocals: Melody Cristea (15)
Rhythm guitar: Ethan Cristea (11)
Keys: Justin Cristea (9)
……..
They began recording demos and attracting attention from the record industry. Here is one from 2018. It’s interesting to look back over their evolution as they go through their awkward teens and experiment with their look and stage personae.
Sam went through a stage when he sported a truly unfortunate porn stache (not shown here). Here, Melody is beginning to emerge as the rock star in the family but is still growing into the role.
“Somebody to Love” (2018, cover of Jefferson Airplane)
This stays true to the original song structure but gives it much more raw aggression. I think it’s a great cover.
…….
“Piece of My Heart” (2019, cover of Janis Joplin)
Here they are a year later. By this time, it was obvious that Melody’s voice was extraordinary. They did the smart thing and allowed her to step up fully into the lead role in the band. Ethan switched from rhythm guitar to bass, allowing Melody to focus on singing. The move paid off, and they seem to have found the perfect mix for what they want to do. Here, Melody channels Janis Joplin. That takes some serious cojones.
Vocals: Melody Cristea (17)
Guitars: Samuel Cristea (20)
Bass guitar: Ethan Cristea (13)
Keys: Justin Cristea (11)
Drums: Abigail Cristea (19)
The real test of significance, of course, at least for a rock band, is performing original material. Liliac have released a full album of original songs. I will be posting more on them soon. Stay tuned, and if you want to be notified when I publish, please sign up for email alerts. Thank you!
There may also be die hard music fans getting up there in age who are making music on their own very much off the radar, but who may be worth a listen. I’ll keep you posted 😉
You know, I appreciate your surfacing new artists like The Warning (also a great Queensryche album title, btw), as well as the UTA namecheck (love them); but I gotta tell ya, all this "rock is dead" conceit is 100% pure rat-manure. For literally every particular niche-taste in rock out there there's at least 2-3 bands of regional/national status; who are filling venues and selling T-shirts by the carload. The apparent disconnect with the "critic community" is that they're being held to standards that are impossible to meet; no one's gonna be able to, on the first few years, match bands of the past that have 30-40 years of people telling you how great they were, in print, repeatedly. Most storied "scenes" and genres of earlier days have been only glorified in hindsight, and the bands in them were qualitatively no different than any band playing in Cleveland tomorrow night. Rock and roll is immediate and about Being There; not standing at a distance with a lorgnette and inspecting it like a sculpture. That's what it was in whatever era you marked as your favorite; and that's what it is now.
What it is not, under any measure, is "dead".
Anyway, thanks for all you do for new bands; it's a hell of a lot more than most media gives us these days.