Seeking Revenge

The worst thing that can happen to a band today is to get pigeonholed. Yet it's the thing that critics and music enthusiasts alike spend the most time doing.

"X sounds like Y," is often the first thing to pop out of a friend's mouth when describing a new band. Critics disguise their comparisons a little better, but words like "channeling" and "reminiscent" are integral parts of most music journalists' vocabulary.

Los Angeles duo She Wants Revenge knows a thing or two about journalists comparing their sound to that of others.

"We get compared to a lot of bands that are out there now. For people to think that we pull influences from bands … you know, we love Interpol, but they've only been around for a couple years," said Adam Brown, aka DJ Adam 12, one half of the fledgling band.

"To think that we are influenced by a band that's had like one or two records out over the last couple years, as guys who grew up in the 80s being influenced by all these bands that meant so much to us at such an important time in our lives, is kind of ridiculous."

Both Adam and his band-mate Justin Warfield are from the Los Angeles area and grew up disc jockeying. It's their hip-hop background that Adam said is most important to the band's development.

"We started out doing hip-hop together, we were going to form a production company and just make beats. But we come from what we consider the Golden Age of hip-hop, which is like late '80s, early '90s. So when we started making hip-hop beats … hip-hop's not like it used to be. Our hearts just weren't in it as our hearts were back when we loved hip-hop," Brown said.

Their first track, "Black Liner Run," pushed them in the direction that produced their self-titled album, due out in the United States on Jan. 31.

"We wanted to find something that we could do that made us feel a certain way and I did a beat one day and put some keyboards on it and played it for Justin. He took it home and put some guitars on it and sang on it and we kinda listened to it and we were like, 'Wow.' It sounded like some of the music that had been so special to us growing up."

It's the darkness, the blunt references to sex and violence in the songs that really catch you when you take a look at the lyrics and listen to the album. "

If you're afraid to say / But you'd like to try / Just give me the safe word and take your hand / And smack me in the mouth, my love," sings Warfield on "Monologue."

On "These Things," Warfield gets even more graphic, singing, "I heard it's cold out, but her popsicle melts / She's in the bathroom, she pleasures herself / Says I'm a bad man, she's locking me out / It's cause of these things, it's cause of these things."

Even the hit single, "Tear You Apart," has been criticized as some for promoting rape.

"The songs may be dark, but … it's all metaphor, the last thing that we would ever advocate would be violence. That song is much more of a love song if you take into consideration the metaphor." Said who?

This all comes from a man who describes Public Enemy and Madonna with the same word, "amazing."

For the record, I think She Wants Revenge sounds a little like Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails channeling Joy Division in a very obscured way.

But that's what I think. She Wants Revenge would rather listeners come out and experience the band in order to form their own opinions.

"Our live performance is just as important, if not more important to us as the recording of the album. We hope that people can connect with our music in the way that we connected with music and certain records growing up."

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You can check out She Wants Revenge this Friday at the El Rey Theatre or March 9 at the Henry Fonda Theater.