Limitless branding potential for their catchy moniker aside, there’s nothing truly glamorous about glamourKings, the fiery tart-tongued power trio that’s generously making us a one-time offer: a Front Row Seat To The End of the World.
Fed up with our superficial, media fed and driven culture and the overall “ignorance is bliss” vibe of folks in their native Long Island, brothers Michael Urge (vocals, guitar, bass, synth) and John Biordi (drums), along with Jon Billian (live synth/guitars) forge a blistering fusion of electronic, dance and attitude heavy hard rock energy as an unbridled outlet for their aggression. With deeper focus and more thematically linked lyrical bluntness than they displayed on their well-received 2007 debut For Full Stimulation, they’ve cornered the indie market on a dynamic new sub-genre they unabashedly refer to as “pissed off dance rock.”
And their ironic name? Far from conceit, and more than just a pointed barb at a whiny suburban society, it’s a universal critique of a new culture lusting over reality television, diet fads, television degradation, cosmetic surgery, insecurity, chewed up-bubble gum music and celebrities. glamourKings is here to point out—over some of the funkiest, high energy rock grooves you’ve ever heard—the foibles of a world where the new “talent” is an individual hoping to be at the very most an internet celebrity icon while still remaining voiceless, plastered on YouTube, and having several zeros to flaunt on their profile views.
GlamourKings’ refreshing, no holds barred message has been catching on these past few years, as the trio has gigged regularly on slates with other electronic-driven bands at Lower East Side spots like R-Bar, The Annex and Delancey. Though their sound owes more to edgy rockers like Biordi’s influences Guns N’ Roses, Deftones, and Faith No More and Urge’s favorites God Lives Underwater and Nine Inch Nails, the band manages to fuse a sound that hits somewhere in between the electronic beats of MGMT and the raw anger of Rage Against The Machine. They’ve performed various times at larger venues in Long Island like The Crazy Donkey with 80s pop hitmakers Missing Persons and Berlin and, more recently, they’ve played with new wave-type bands with an electronic side, such as The Mystic Underground, Lowe and Dossier. GK was named one of Unsigned The Magazine’s Top 100 Bands of 2009 and was featured in the Top Bands section of Vents Magazine. Their song “Addiction” from For Full Stimulation was placed in several shows on the Discovery Network in the fall of 2009.
This breakthrough success wasn’t enough to stop glamourKings from really speaking their mind and thereby preparing us for come what may with a Front Row Seat To The End of the World. “A lot of our anger and jadedness came from our surroundings while growing up,” says Urge. “But slowly the music we were playing started do drift away from straightforward rock and into more electronic dance rock. Our debut For Full Stimulation was a first experiment with that sound, but lyrically, it was all over the place and was more about personal and emotional stuff. This one is more polished and honed and fully reflects our awareness of what’s going on now in the world. We’re not predicting imminent doom or anything, but we’re basically calling people out and trying to get them to be aware of reality instead of living their lives being distracted by the latest meaningless pop culture scandal”. Says Biordi, “It seems most ordinary people want to feel like a star, and will do whatever it takes to get their own front row seat - even if the big show is a train wreck.”
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