Hollywood Undead Want To Join Forces With Skrillex

Hollywood Undead recently dropped their remix disc ‘American Tragedy Redux’ based off of their successful second studio album ‘American Tragedy.’ The band collaborated with numerous artists such as Jonathan Davis of Korn, KMFDM, Andrew W.K., labelmates Borgore and many others.

We recently published an interview with  Hollywood Undead singer-guitarist Charlie Scene, in which he talked about the remix CD and more. We also asked him  what artist would he want to work with that he hasn’t gotten a chance to yet and he told us, “We’re friends with Skrillex, who we grew up with, he was one of our first choices to do a remix.”

Scene goes on to say, “We were gonna have him remix some of our songs but his computer got stolen at the end of one of the shows so he wasn’t able to do it, it would be cool to have him.”

The group might just be a tad jealous of pal Jonathan Davis who got the chance to work with Skrillex for Korn’s new album ‘The Path of Totality.’ The members of Hollywood Undead are currently on ‘The Buried Alive’ tour with with their West Coast buddies Avenged Sevenfold with support from Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides. For a full list of dates, go here.

Stereoboard Tour of the Week - Korn - Tickets Onsale NOW!

A heavy metal band making a dubstep album? Who’d have thought it? OK, so by now – unless you’ve been living on a desert island for the past year – you’re probably more than aware that Korn’s latest album ‘The Path of Totality’, which was released earlier this month, has taken the band in the largely-unexpected direction of dubstep. Not that they’ve abandoned their nu-metal origins completely, but it’s fair to say that this latest move by the Californian rockers may have come as a bit of a shock to some.

For their tenth album release, Korn were never likely to let us down by bringing out anything simple and predictable, let’s face it. But this latest foray into the realms of electronic music may have come as something of a surprise to even their most dedicated followers. However, according to frontman Jonathan Davis, in a recent interview with Billboard, ‘The Path of Totality’ hasn’t come entirely out of the blue: “We were dubstep before there was dubstep. Tempos at 140 with half-time drums, huge bassed-out riffs. We used to bring out 120 subwoofers and line them across the whole front of the stage, 60 subs per side. We were all about the bass.”

Another important point to note is that, despite more than a shadow of a doubt from various critics and even some old-school Korn fans, the response to ‘The Path of Totality’ since its recent release has been far from a complete disaster, even earning the band a number of praising reviews. Of course, if they were going to do a dubstep album, it seems that Korn have certainly gone the right way about it, getting the likes of Grammy-nominated producer Skrillex onboard to assist. In addition to being a renowned up-and-coming dubstep artist, Skrillex – aka Sonny Moore – is no stranger to rock, having previously been the lead singer with post-hardcore band From First to Last.

In the same Billboard interview, Davis confirmed that Korn’s younger fans have really taken to the band’s new sound, but that the old school are not so easily convinced: “These kids are onto something completely innovative and new. It's pure and awesome and underground and heavy and different, not like stale-ass metal and rock'n'roll. I love them all, but the old-school metalheads are not open to change.”

Maybe it’s the sight of glow sticks that is putting them off. Glow sticks at a Korn gig? Apparently so: “It's really cool to see glow sticks at the show, to see dance music culture infiltrating and becoming one with the metal community.” Hmmm… Convinced? We’ll leave it to you to decide when the band bring ‘The Path of Totality’ over to the UK and Ireland in March.

Regardless of what your opinion is on dubstep and other electronic music, there’s no denying that there’s still plenty of the old Korn that we know and love on ‘The Path of Totality’. Or as Jonathan Davis recently put it: “We didn’t make a dubstep album. We made a Korn album.”

However, if the new album isn’t really your thing, don’t forget that Korn still have another nine albums and seventeen years in their back catalogue and no doubt they’ll be bringing plenty of that along with them in March. Are you ready?



Sun March 25th 2012 - O2 Academy Brixton, London
Mon March 26th 2012 - O2 Academy Birmingham, Birmingham
Wed March 28th 2012 - Manchester Academy 1, Manchester
Thu March 29th 2012 - O2 Academy Glasgow, Glasgow
Tue April 3rd 2012 - O2 Academy Bristol, Bristol

Concert review: Skrillex at The Ritz Ybor, Ybor City

His masterful production and unrelenting performance made for a mind-melting spectacle this past Friday night; with video.

Skrillex's Friday night show at The Ritz Ybor selling out three-and-a-half months in advance probably signifies some sort of music apocalypse to some. How a whiny screamo star-turned-electronic dance music poster boy can do this and not, say, an artist who sings and plays a "real" instrument, seems blasphemously baffling.

It probably doesn't help that he nabbed five Grammy nominations, a Spin cover, and a hefty handful of major radio station airplay all over the past few months. If there was anything resembling a massive revolution in popular American music this year, it was the burgeoning wave of dubstep-driven electronic dance music with Skrillex, board and all, surfing atop the whole damn thing.

Friday night wholly justified this sentiment. Entering the massive circus of fans ranging from shirtless muscley bros (a first time sight at the Ritz), to hyper-colored ballerinas, you could tell the main draw (besides the actual music) is the weird little subculture it's spawned.

The drugs, the costumes, the glowsticks, the sweaty camaraderie of it all; it's like entering a whole new neon reality far removed from every day life.

And that's before Skrillex even hit the stage. Flanked by two towering groups of pillars resembling a hybrid between the Emerald City and the set of Total Recall, Skrillex took the helm and didn't let go for a powerful 90 minutes.

For the most part, his catalogue relies heavily on remixes of other well-known tracks with a handful of his own (dude only has three EPs) thrown in for good measure. Tracks like his remix of Avicii's "Levels" or La Roux's "In for the Kill" all take a completely formulaic and predictable trajectory (what dubstep remixes don't?) but, goddamn, it's so hard not to get caught up in the Pavlovian response to the pulse-pounding energy of it all.

This married with the visual feast exploding around Skrillex's booth made for a pretty jaw-dropping spectacle. The massive screen behind it bounced from one visual to another with a C3PO-looking avatar popping up every once and a while. About halfway through the set, I realized this figure was mirroring all of Skrillex's movements by way of the tight Tron suit he was sporting. Can this be standard for, like, every DJ set, ever?

Not that he fell back on all the visual stuff. He puts on a show himself; calling out the crowd, bouncing back and forth, flailing with his godawful hairstyle like some maniacal primate. As one-dimensional as his music can sometimes be on record, live is a different story. House, dub, reggae, even a curveball verse from Biggie's "Hypnotize" and Fatman Scoop's "Be Faithful" made their way into the mix.

Coupled with a few unrecorded tracks and the more (read: insanely) popular ones like opener "Rock n' Roll (Will Take You to the Mountain)," "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" and his remix of Benny Benassi's "Cinema," the set showed a respectable amount of diversity and influence for a DJ who get such a one-note rep sometimes.

By the end, I left the Ritz much more impressed than I expected to be. Skrillex's masterful production and unrelenting performance made for a mind-melting spectacle that easily co-signed his worth as the top guy in the game right now. Here's to wishing Skrillex doesn't get to big for his designer britches and comes back to Ritz just once more before he explodes into superstardom.

Some video highlights from the show: