Dick Valentine, front and center, has a rock and roll voice that delivers pure zealous faith. His voice goes from seductive growl to primal howl in nanos, and emotes with occasional Jack Black-styled elocutions like "dev-eeel," or "e-veal."
If The Darkness didn't come off like karaoke simps, if Urge Overkill wasn't distant & too cool for you, if Lou Gramm was electrocuted by Kiss, Mountain, Funkadelic, & Spinal Tap, you'd (sort of) get Dick Valentine.
E6 are currently shotgunning 40+ live dates across these United States in support of their second album, Señor Smoke. The album is named for Aurelio Lopez, a baseball relief pitcher with the 1984 World Series Champion Detroit Tigers, and also reveals the band's Detroit roots — they made their bones there with bands like The Dirtbombs and The White Stripes.
Their recent show at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey beamed all the glitz of a packed Lite-Brite disco dance floor onto the eager fans. They ripped through new favorites like "Rock & Roll Evacuation," and "Be My Dark Angel," classics like "Dance Commander" and "Gay Bar," and even spilled a fierce cover of Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back" that freed the song from the tyranny of Lite FM.
Ten minutes before they took the stage, over beers in the upstairs bar, I asked Dick Valentine — throbbing rock star, Satan's party promoter, funhouse carny, and lead singer of Electric Six — the penultimate question: "How do you, Electric Six, rock so hard?"
His answer? "We hate our parents."
This article appeared in slightly modified form on Tiffany Leigh's blog, Soundtrack To The Motion Picture.
Article comments
1 - Mark P
Hahaha... that I did not expect. A perfect eight-paragraph lead in, then a one line answer :D That perfectly sums up some of the band's ethos I think. Can you imagine his mother listening to any of their albums and approving?
2 - bignose caveman
That was the penultimate question? When do you ask the ultimate one?