Black Lips

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• Genre: Garage Rock Revival
• Hometown: Atlanta
• Black Lips Website

About

If surly, soused, and thoroughly southern garage punk is your game, then Atlanta's Black Lips are your kind of fellas. Cole Alexander (lead vocals, guitar, harmonica), Ben Eberbaugh (lead guitar), Jared Swilley (bass) and Joe Bradley (drums) came together as teenagers in 2000. They got a little attention for a couple of singles -- and even more for their rowdy, debauched live shows, which have included vomiting, urinating in each other's mouths and spitting pee at the audience, and setting their pubic hair on fire. Needless to say, they've been banned from a number of Georgia venues. They signed to Bomp! Records, recorded their first album in 2002 and prepared to take off on a tour of the East Coast and Midwest that would extend their bad reputation beyond the Bible Belt. Tragically, just before the album was released and the tour began, Eberbaugh was killed when a driver going the wrong way crashed into his car at a toll booth. The band continued as a three-piece, eventually hiring first Jack Hines and later Ian Brown as their fourth member.

- Rachel Devitt