Have you ever wished your favorite indy rock bands were just a little more right wing? Tired of annoying socialistic lyrics attached to the post-punk chords of bands like Green Day? Wish you could find some songs praising President Bush, opposing abortion and bashing Hollywood? Well, you don't have to be an American idiot any more. Now you can listen to The Right Brothers.
The Right Brothers are two guitar-slinging brothers from Nashville plus a drummer, who've combined engaging pop-punk riffs with lyrics straight out of American Spectator. Their current single is "Bush Was Right", an upbeat song which crows the successes of the Bush administration and has an amusing repeated chord sequence which sounds rather like a guitar saying "nyah nyah nyah." It's a cleverly written and catchy song, if a bit derivative of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Bowling for Soup's "Ohio". But for the content it's the kind of song which could actually get airplay. They've even got a pretty well produced video for the song, though I don't think you can expect to see it on Fuse any time soon. The song has also been picked up to be used in a TV ad to run on Fox News by RightMarch - coals to Newcastle, perhaps.
Another recent release, which I think is actually a better and more original song is "What About the Issues?", a response to the hatemail they've been getting about their music. It's available on their website as a free download. No video for it, but it pretty much speaks for itself.
They actually have videos for a half-dozen songs, plus a total of more than 20 songs in release. They hit on virtually every topic of current politics, with titles like "Tolerate This", "Trickle Down", "The Illegals", "I Want to Live" and "This Ain't Your Daddy's Party". They've got songs about immigration (several, in fact), the Iraq War, abortion, racial profiling and tax cuts. Some of the songs have more of a country or folk feel to them, but the guitar work is universally good and the vocals are clear and easy to understand, if not always brilliantly originally written.
Not surprisingly, they've stirred up a little controversy, with attacks starting to spread on the left-wing blogosphere. The tag line on their website is "the truth disguised as music," and it's clear that to a large extent the music here is secondary to the message, which is not to say that the music isn't sometimes pretty good as well. Whether the approach of recording nothing but right-wing political songs is hearfelt or pure marketing is a valid question. The topics are too perfectly picked and the music in some ways too well tailored to a pop audience for me to feel that it's completely authentic. I'd believe them more if the songs were more personal and more original.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - zingzing
well, the music is terrible... derivative, annoying, and worst of all, emoish poop-punk. whiny shit. of course, i'm not going to like it, although i have to say that their right-wing stance is about as "punk" as any band that sounds this shitty has a right to be. shrug.
2 - Dave Nalle
Now zing, they're musically competent - moreso than half the bands on the airwaves right now. And as for derivative, all the crap on your indy-rock stations fits within the same limited parameters, and they've managed to hit that target fairly accurately. The question is not whether the music is objectively 'good', but whether it's really any worse than the mainstream equivalent.
Dave
3 - zingzing
so, if it's crap, i can't call it crap because there's a lot of crap? crap!
that crap don't fly, dave.
4 - Dave Nalle
You can certainly call it crap - crapiness is entirely subjective - but you won't get too far if you argue that it's any worse than the rest of the big steaming pile of virtually identical crap.
Dave
5 - Dave Nalle
Unless, of course, it's automatically crappier because they're right-wingers.
Dave
6 - zingzing
now, i didn't say that, did i? crap is crap i say.
7 - Steve
I've always found it curious that more art (in whatever form) seems to come from lefties, more than right wingers. It seems that art's general lack of boundaries seems to attract those who want to change society, and repel those who want to keep it the same. What y'all think??
8 - zingzing
oh no! don't!
this has been gone over elsewhere, and it sucked.
dave, do not start. don't. no! goddamn it, steve, what the fuck were you thinking?!
9 - Steve
zing, tell me where it's been gone over elsewhere, why did it...suck...as you so quaintly say??... you've got me even more curious now...
10 - zingzing
it's somewhere on here... i think the title of the post was "why are so many artists liberals?" or something close to that. it just devolved into a bunch of people spouting meaningless stats that backed up their claims and saying, 'well, i've known a bunch of artists and the majority of them were' right... left... whatever... it was really stupid.
11 - Dave Nalle
I'm intrigued too.
And anyway the divisions of right and left are fairly arbitrary. There are plenty of folks who our current standards classify as 'right wingers' who want to change society - sometimes radically.
Dave
12 - Steve
Well, Dave, they may want to change society, but rarely using art, wouldn't you say??
13 - Dave Nalle
It's hard to say, because a lot of the time we don't really know what an artist's political views are. The only right-leaning artist I can think of right off is Jackson Pollock, though there's a good crop of conservative actors if you consider actors to be artists. Fred Thompson, Tom Selleck, Charlton Heston, Ron Silver, Chad Lowe - not a bad list considering that it's almost career suicide to declare a right-wing allegiance in Hollywood.
Dave
14 - El Bicho
"it's almost career suicide to declare a right-wing allegiance in Hollywood."
Yeah, just think how big Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger could have been.
That career suicide thing is absolutle hogwash. It's perpetuated by talentless hacks who refuse to look in the mirror and try to fix blame on something other than their own limited skills.
As long as you bring in money, Hollywood doesn't care what your political party is.
15 - Dave Nalle
Damn, I forgot those two. Not sure Schwarzenneger is an artist, though. The dynamic I see here is clear - if you play bad guys, cowboys or cops/vigelantes for a living you can be conservative all you want.
Dave
16 - El Bicho
There's an art to playing an action hero or else they would all be successful.
The dynamic is so clear you are seeing right past it. You can be a conservative all you want if you deliver at the box office. If you think that's all Clint plays, you're missing many of his roles.
What stars that are the liberals have had long, unsuccessful careers? It's show BUSINESS.
17 - JP
Zing, "Why are so many artists liberals?" was my article and I appreciate your heartfelt support. Remind me to trash the next post you write in other threads also.
Steve, I'm there with you--in terms of "modern rock" or "alternative," especially, it wouldn't be worthy of a blog post to point out a band that's actually speaking out for conservative causes if the occurrence weren't noteworthy, would it?
And Dave, "Tired of annoying socialistic lyrics attached to the post-punk chords of bands like Green Day?" No more than the rah-rah-USA bullshi* coming out of so many country music stars, so why not go listen to Toby Keith if you're annoyed by Green Day's lyrics? Why are country stars so excited about promoting the redneck agenda?
18 - Steve
Thanks, JP. And I'm not into country either.
19 - Dave Nalle
I'm not into country music either, and what grabbed me about this particular band was that they aren't primarily country and are targeting a different market. They're trying to basically poach the teen market which despises country away from the usual lefty bands, and that's kind of intriguing.
As for the 'redneck agenda', come again? There are more rednecks who vote Democrat than Republican as far as I can tell.
Dave
20 - zingzing
jp, i'm not trashing your post... damn, man, relax... i'm trashing the comments section, which devolved into b.s. real fast.
21 - zingzing
sheesh. knee-jerk, much?
22 - Mark Saleski
As for the 'redneck agenda', come again? There are more rednecks who vote Democrat than Republican as far as I can tell.
also, water is not wet.
23 - Steve
Re, rednecks, Dave...really???
I'll have to tell that to my Canadian friends some time...they love to bash conservatives by calling them rednecks.
24 - Anne
Not to burst anyone's bubble, but the song is basically a rehash of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire". So much so that the RightBrothers will likely be hearing from Joel's attorney. And the lyrics are laughably poor; not clever, not catchy, not even rhyming. Just because it has a message some people support doesn't mean it should be elevated to art. Not at the expense of your own reputations. Of course, mileage varies. I guess.
25 - JP
Dave, rednecks at least in my state (Ga) are frustrated that the Confederate flag isn't flying. They vote on religion, on gun rights, anti gay rights.. Conservative. The redneck agenda.