GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

JULY 19, 1996

Evenings Out

Hard-core rock with something extra

THI

2525

by Doreen Cudnik

With sounds and styles that vary from thrashing rock to haunting melancholia to edgy from-the-heart ballads, Extra Fancy brings an uncompromising musical and emotional pitch to everything they do. "We like to break down a lot of barriers," drummer Derek O'Brien states succinctly.

One of the myths they are exploding is the way that gay men are perceived by many hard rock and punk fans. With openly gay frontman Brian Grillo writing the bulk of the band's lyrics, Extra Fancy has established themselves as a group that is willing to challenge the stereotypes. In addition to Grillo and O'Brien, the band consists of D.A. Foster on bass and backing vocals, and Michael Hateley on guitar and backing vocals.

The explicitly queer lyrics on the California group's debut album, Sinnerman, cover topics like gaybashing, coming out of the closet, rape, and living with HIV/AIDS.

The album, originally released through Diablo Music in the fall of 1995, was re-released by Atlantic Records in the spring of 1996, with three brand-new songs, including the title track. The video for Sinnerman, which contains a hot man-to-man kiss scene, was recently accepted for airing on MTV.

With the album's release, Grillo achieves the distinction of being the first out hard-core rocker on a major label. As the group's leader and principal songwriter, Grillo gives the songs a decisively queer edge, but straight band mate O'Brien says that such qualifiers can get distracting.

"I don't look at Brian as a gay artist," says O'Brien. "I look at him as an artist who happens to be gay. I'd like people to be able to listen to what he has to say without a big issue being made out of his sexuality. Otherwise, I think that's cheating him."

Grillo's musical style was influenced by his days in Los Angeles' underground punk movement in the late seventies. "I was just blown away the first time I went to see a real punk rock show. I felt I'd finally found where I belonged. There were all these kids from really fucked-up suburban homes, and it became like a family. That's what punk represented to me."

At the same time that he was discovering this thriving music scene and hanging out with young punks from bands like Black

Derek O' Brien, Brian Grillo. Michael Hateley and D.A. Foster of Extra Fancy.

Flag and Redd Kross, Grillo was also coming came to terms with his sexuality.

"It was a really liberating time," he said. "I had fallen in love with my first boyfriend, I was living in my first apartment, and I was supporting myself with a job.

He played and sang in various Los Angeles area bands until the mid-80s, when he moved to the other coast, New York City. To support himself in the Big Apple, Grillo worked as a waiter by day and as a nude go-go dancer in a Times Square theater by night. "As horrifying as it was at the time," Grillo said, "the go-go experience gave me a lot more insight into real extreme kinds of performance."

Upon returning to Los Angeles, Grillo formed Lock Up with guitarist Tom Morello (now with Rage Against the Machine), a band that developed a strong West Coast following and eventually released an album through Geffen Records.

It was during Lock Up's most high-pro-

file period that Grillo struggled most with the notion of personal privacy and public profile. Grillo said, "People were telling me, 'Keep your fuckin' mouth shut about your sexuality. You're going to blow the whole thing'. I couldn't deal with that and I started getting really pissed off. The fact that people were telling me that my lifestyle is invalid, or something I have to be quiet about, made it clear that life is really too short."

While the new band Extra Fancy took shape after the 1991 dissolution of Lock Up, Grillo made a commitment that he would be totally honest and open about his sexuality, regardless of the consequences. "I've seen too many gay people made to feel less-thanhuman, so I'm sure not going to be quiet about it."

And they are certainly anything but quiet. Their hard-rock sound is reminiscent of some of the bands in the late '70s and early '80s, like the Ramones, X, and the Sex Pistols. They also bear a strong resemblance to some

of the harder-edge bands out today like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nine Inch Nails. If the bands you remember liking usually had a lead singer that started each song by screaming "onetwo-three-four!" into a microphone, then Extra Fancy's Sinnerman is for you. If you are old enough to remember the early '80s punk scene in Cleveland, when the Flats was a place where you went to experience underground, alternative bands like the F-models, the Adults, and Pere Ubu in seedy, smoky bars like the Pirate's Cove (now Peabody's DownUnder), then this CD is sure to get plenty of play on your stereo.

According to the band, an Extra Fancy show is like a freak show, "full of chills and thrills and sex and anything else you could want. A typical crowd at show consists of a little of everything-straight people, dykes, muscle-builder guys, drag queens, and lots of leather and fetish folks.

"When Extra Fancy plays, we like to take the place over," said Grillo. "We try to create an escape from the real world, where no matter who you are, gay or straight—you feel like you actually fit in with a gang of people."

Grillo added, "After a show,

I often have straight guys-guys who I can tell have always been nervous about being around gay people come up to me and say, 'You rock. We don't even care that you're gay.' And I think it's cool that we've changed somebody's mind and hopefully busted up a few stereotypes along the way."

Even though Extra Fancy makes no bones about their queer content, they hesitate to align themselves with the "queercore movement," which includes bands like Pansy Division, Team Dresch, and Tribe 8. While Grillo recognizes that scene as an important one, he says that he has "gotten a lot of flak from some people in the queercore hierarchy because I don't call Extra Fancy a queercore band.”

"We're a rock band,” Grillo said, “we're a punk rock band; we're a hard rock band. I want to reach all kinds of people. I'm sure there are a lot of straight people that can listen to my words and say, 'Man, I've been there before'."