Following up on the success of “Too Fast To Fall In Love,” their first new music since 2009, Bang Camaro gets 2023 started with the single, “We Know You Know.”
With face-melting guitar solos and a wall of gang vocals, Bang Camaro blasted onto the Boston music scene in 2005 as a reaction to the early aughts nostalgia for post-punk / new wave music. If bands like The Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Interpol were going to wax nostalgic about bands like Joy Division, Bang Camaro was spawned to fill the void left by groups like Def Leppard and Skid Row.
Quickly boosted by their inimitable performances – complete with approximately 20 lead vocalists to bring their signature sound to life without backing tracks, leading to one apt description of their sound as “Headbangers Ball meets The Polyphonic Spree” – and inclusion in the widely popular rhythm games Guitar Hero and Rock Band, Bang Camaro hit the road. They toured the US and Canada for five straight years, appearing at festivals such as Lollapalooza and Summerfest. The relentless touring, coupled with the releases of their debut self-titled album in 2007 and 2009’s follow-up, Bang Camaro II, and appearances on national television shows like Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and MTV Spring Break, continued to attract fans, including stars Jimmy Fallon (who joined them on stage for a legendary performance at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom) and James Gunn.
The latter would serve as the catalyst for the band to reunite a decade after their last show when he selected “Push Push (Lady Lightning)” to be prominently featured in a trailer and episode of the HBO series, Peacemaker. The surprise request, and the positive reaction from the show’s audience, inspired guitarists Bryn Bennett and Alejandro Necochea, and bassist Dave “Doz” Riley, to start making music together again.
Necochea jokes that “We Know You Know” is about copping to a lack of wisdom. “Ozzy said ‘I Don’t Know’ when they looked to him for answers, so we asked ourselves how we might respond if anyone looked to us for answers. At first, we really weren’t sure but eventually, we came up with, ‘We Know’ because there are a lot of us… But then we added the ‘You Know’ to turn it around on you, telling the listener they’re wearing the ruby slippers the entire time and also because WE don’t really know anything, let’s be honest, we’re just a rock band. And then we added guitar solos which seem to make everyone happy.”
Bennett, however, admits that there’s a deeper meaning. “When spending a lot of time on the road, you get to meet a lot of your fans. A lot of them were great, and I made some lifelong friends. Other people, however, just didn’t get what we were all about with our music,” he says. “They took some of the things we said, and came away with a completely different and negative spin on what we were doing. This song was for the people that heard our lyrics but perceived them through their own twisted world view, and in turn, thought we were standing for something we weren’t. That always bothered me.”
Bang Camaro is currently working on their long-awaited third album, BANG CAMARO III. The collection of new songs is reminiscent of their earlier work while continuing to push the limit of what the world’s only gang-vocal-based metal band has done before.
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