 band
members . . .Jimi HaHa – vocals Dave Dowling – guitar Che' Lemon – bass Jim Chaney – drums
discography . . . about the band...
The
group formed Fowl Records and released Give Something Back. After
selling tens of thousands of records around the Baltimore area, Jimmie's
Chicken Shack signed to Elton John’s Rocket Records and released their
major-label debut, Pushing the Salmanilla Envelope. Still involved with
their own label, however, the group also released The Original Recipe,
a collection of early recordings, followed in 1999 by Bring Your Own
Stereo. Jimmie's
Chicken Shack is the type of name one would expect from either a country
act or Southern-fried country-rockers, but Pushing the Salmanilla
Envelope hardly falls into either of those categories. Rather, this
promising debut album showed Chicken Shack to be hard-driving
alternative rockers whose music is as intense as it is melodic. As
metallic and abrasive as things get on "High," "Dropping Bring Your Own Stereo, Jimmie's sequel to Pushing the Salmanilla Envelope, pretty much follows through on its successor, delivering an energetic set of party rock. Produced by Jim Wirt (Sprung Monkey, Incubus, Dial 7), the group came out of the studio surprising even themselves. In particular are the insistent pop gem "Trash" (which HaHa wrote in ten minutes) and "Waiting," an emotional acoustic guitar-driven number. "They were both written the week before went to the studio," HaHa explains. "I was writing them at the same time and they're two completely different sounding songs. That's kind of how we do stuff. And that's what our shows have always been about, too."
HaHa
concedes that songwriting is as essential to him as any other bodily
function. "I'm like a faucet and I like to keep it on so my
plumbing stays clean," he explains. "I just spit out a lot of
stuff." While some subject matter on the album deals with personal
fare like "String Of Pearls" (about giving a heartfelt present
to someone who throws it in your face), HaHa's most memorable songs are
often based in humor. The funked up, get-up-and-groove "Let's Get
Flat" came from the singer's attempt at becoming a self-help guru.
Well, sort of. "That's one of my favorite lyrics in the
world," he says of the song. "That's from me and my friend Joe
Karr--he's in the band JoKing--we were writing this book called How
To Live Without A Job and it was gonna be this self-help-looking
book but it was full of really ridiculous stuff." Jimmie's
Chicken Shack have no multi-platinum dreams dancing around their heads.
In fact, the group who often invite their fans onstage to sing a lyric
(and who've created an EP of outtakes from Bring Your Own Stereo
called Slow Change, which fans who buy Bring Your Own can
get by sending in a card) have much more modest hopes for their
sophomore release. "Hopefully our record will make people laugh and
think and maybe even cry and maybe jump around and go nuts,"
explains HaHa. "If we can get all those emotions out of people then
I think we win." |
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Lead
vocalist Jimi HaHa grew up in Maryland and got his musical start singing
an a cappella version of the Beach Boys “Surfin” as a second grader
in an elementary school talent show.
Anchor,"
"Milk" and other selections, Jimmie’s Chicken Shack has a
powerful sense of melody that seldom lets the foursome down. This is a
band that gets much of its aggression from metal, punk and alternative,
but isn't afraid to incorporate elements of everything from Middle
Eastern music to psychedelic rock, funk and rap. Many of lead singer
Jimi HaHa’s lyrics are quite substantial -- "Outhouse"
addresses environmental concerns, while "Blood" examines the
dangers of unprotected sex. A song that many single people could relate
to in the 1990s, "Blood" speaks of having an overpowering need
for intimacy but knowing that promiscuity could kill you. Pushing the
Salmanilla Envelope made us hope that future Chicken Shack releases
would be this exciting.
Jimmie's
Chicken Shack take things to another level on Bring Your Own Stereo starting
with "Do Right," the album's catchy first single.
"It's just basically frustration with the fact that I had a
girlfriend who had no problem telling me about my shortcomings and never
really told me anything good," HaHa reveals. "It was just a
three in the morning, five minute rant." Admittedly, HaHa's
ex-girlfriend figures heavily into the album's lyrical landscape.
"The whole record basically is about my last girlfriend," he
says with a laugh. "It's kind of funny." 