Last week a London pop band called Raygun learned the hard way that the term “viral” does not always have a positive connotation for up and coming musicians.
A Youtube clip which was picked up by sites last week featured Raygun in the standard “band sitting around describing their music” feature was rapidly elevated to viral status as people began to share the Spinal Tap-esque video on social networking sites and blogs thanks solely to the Raygun singer’s unintentionally hammy answers.
The singer’s noted nuggets include comparisons of the band to sounding like “Iggy Pop, James Brown, David Bowie and Shirley Bassey in a lift”and a Nathan Barley-esque recounting of how the band make their songs which resulted in the newly coined recording process “PsycheDelia Smith” referring to the famous English cook. There’s also a cringeworthy part two of the interview where he utters the words “”We’ll have mojitos at 11 o’ clock in the morning! I mean, what the hell, man?”. Keraazy.
The clip which was first posted with the title “Lack of Self Awareness” was hastily taken down by the band’s record label Sony but that didn’t stop people re-uploading it again for further chortle-spreading. Despite the annoying answers, the singer (who rather repulsively calls himself Ray Gun) did manage to claw back a shred of credibility in a very aware public apology last week.
In it he apologises to his fellow band members, the aforementioned Mrs. Bassey and Messrs. Pop, Brown, Bowie with the admission that this concoction would not result in sounding like RayGun - “You would have three famous singers and a dead one.” He also resolves to “take my cues from, the true masters of modesty, humility and understatement: Bono, Johnny Borrell and Kanye West,” proving he has some sense of humour after all.
Features
Fri, Aug 14, 2009