Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club crossed primal garage rock with the moodier UK influence of My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus & Mary Chain. Cofounders Robert Turner (vocals, bass) and Peter Hayes (vocals, guitar) were San Francisco high-school friends who first met in 1995; Turner (real name Robert Levon Been) was the son of the Call's late frontman Michael Been. Hayes and Turner went separate ways after graduation with Hayes briefly joining Brian Jonestown Massacre, but regrouped in 1998 with transplanted English drummer Nick Jago, taking their name from Marlon Brando's gang in The Wild One. Now based in Los Angeles the band recorded a demo that drew attention, notably from Oasis' Noel Gallagher who praised them in interviews and tried to sign them to his label. They went with Virgin instead and released their self-titled debut in 2001. Part punk and part psychedelic, the album scored an underground hit with the Stooges-styled "Whatever Happened to My Rock & Roll." The sophomore album Take Them On, On Your Own offered the same energy and musical direction, and the band toured successfully in the UK and UK. The only drama behind the scenes came from Jago, whose substance issues led to his staggering onstage at an NME awards show, and having a backstage fistfight with Hayes on another occasion. He quit the band to enter rehab and was largely absent for the third album, Howl which marked a change of direction, with a semi-acoustic Americana sound informed by blues and gospel. BMRC would juggle and combine the two musical directions for much of their career afterwards: 2007's Baby 81 returned to their original punk/psych leanings, then 2010's Beat the Devil's Tattoo brought back the blues and gospel. Jago rejoined the band but slipped off the wagon, and was permanently replaced in 2008 by Leah Shapiro, a former touring member of the Raveonettes. 2013's Specter of the Feast was informed by the heart-attack death of Michael Been, who had been close to his son's band and had even joined their sound crew on tour. They paid him tribute by releasing a Call cover, "Let the Day Begin" as the album's first single. Just as BMRC were about to begin work on their eighth studio album in 2015, Shapiro was diagnosed with a neurological disease which required life-saving brain surgery. This lent a deeper spiritual tone to the material on Wrong Creatures, which was released in early 2018.