Point Pleasant, West Virginia is a small town near the Ohio River. Its a nice place with friendly people, but one where strange things happen. There was the Mothman, a winged creature that terrorized the citizenry in the late 60s. The area was also the location for munitions manufacturing during World War II, and its said that runoff leaked into the groundwater; when divers began to search the bottom of the Ohio following the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967, they found, according to lifelong Point Pleasant resident Marty McCoy, catfish the size of cars. McCoy, incidentally, is a decedent of half the Hatfield-McCoy feud that almost caused a war between Kentucky and West Virginia in the 1880s. He also formed, with his brother Shaun, the band Bobaflex.The Mothman. Chevy-sized catfish. Bobaflex. Strange things continue to happen in Point Pleasant.Bobaflex is an odd beast, a bracing mix of heavy riffage, hip-hop-inspired beats and alternately growling and soaring vocals. There are four singers in the band, so the angle of attack constantly shifts, which is partly why the bands songs careen around your brain far longer than hard rocks usual offerings. Mostly, the songs on Apologize For Nothing rock outrageously hard because Bobaflex is willing to try anything that sounds good, and couldnt care less how any of it might make them look.Its all about the vocal line and the melody for us. We were never worried about being tough, Marty says, contrasting the bands approach to that evinced by so many others. You can sing a high-pitched melody and go into this falsetto thing without going Im fuckin heterosexual and pissed off! Who gives a fuck? Quit being afraid of not sounding tough.
We heard, one time, he continues, that Rock-n-Roll is supposed to be big and dumb and shameless. It always was to me.Theres no bravado in rock anymore, his lead-singer brother Shaun adds. If I could do a split off the riser I would.We want to keep the music fun, Marty concludes, If people are coming to see us play and buying tickets, Im having a damn blast.The songs on Apologize For Nothing run from the irresistibly over-the-top aggression of Better Than Me to the heavily armored melodies of Bullseye and Guardian and short-attention-span gems like Got You Trapped. All the songs are pushed by beats that bang like hip-hop but never resemble the limp aping of the rap-rock era. Theres always melody you can hum along to chasing some locomotive-sized crunch that makes a mosh pit seem like a good idea.The Bobaflex you see hooting it up on stage is born of small-town restlessness. There was always only one band in Point Pleasant, and that band always seemed to have Marty McCoy, bassist Jerod Mankin and drummer Thomas Johnson. (Guitarist Mike Steele is a native of New Orleans.) In 1998, brothers Marty and Shaun formed Bobaflex, making it a full-time thing in 2000.Marty: We quit our jobs, quit everything, Marty says. We started touring as hard as we could. We would play anywhere. We toured in a damn Baretta one time. In a two-door car. Just wanting to get out of West Virginia, just wanting to get the hell out of there.Shaun: There was no scene. Me and my brother grew up around redneck culture, and we never had anything against it, but 4-wheelin, truck drivin, country music and hunting just went over my head.Marty: We couldnt be trendy, because there wasnt anything trendy going on. When kids were spiking their hair up in West Virginia, they were still rolling their pants up and shit. Five, six, eight years behind.Shaun: For me, being outside the world in a small town where everybody knows everybody, not fitting in, your imagination runs wild.That imagination shows up in spades on Apologize For Nothing. Theres the fact that band melds influences from Queen and the Wu-Tang Clan to Pink Floyd and the bluegrass Shaun and Martys dad taught them. Dad was also a science fiction b-movie buff, which had the brothers watching as much of stinkers like Hell Comes to Frogtown as they could stand. Shaun is also an avowed comic book fan, which goes a long way in explaining the bands lyrics. Take a song like Family, which starts off like a lighter-worthy power ballad with a sensitive rendering of Mother was a caterpillar/ You shouldve seen her cocoon The song picks up speed as Jerod makes like hair metal god with And now shes got dragon wings/ And hunts and eats her enemies/ But I love her anyway/ Cause shes my Mom.No matter how fantastic the lyrics story lines, they all have some basis in the bands fractured reality. I could be writing a song about a space warrior whos called into space by a godlike being, Shaun says, then I end up reading the lyrics a year or two later and its still just about me or someone I know.Bobaflex isnt for everybody, and thats good. Its not supposed to be. Any flavor thats acceptable to everyone is bound to be bland.When we were shopping for labels and the 45, 50 year-old guys were saying, I dont get it. What the hell is this? we knew we were on the right track, Marty says. Youre not supposed to fuckin get it. Im glad you dont get it. But the kids have always got it instantly.
