Powerman 5000: Adaptation

Powerman 5000 gets serious, records video game soundtrack

By Newt Briggs

Last year, Powerman 5000 took its own advice and transformed. Where 1999's Tonight the Stars Revolt traded on B-movie sound effects and hijacked sci-fi narratives about all-seeing eyes and man-eating cyborgs, 2003's Transform was all serious and shit, talking about authenticity and self-determination and the responsibility of youth. It was almost as if Powerman frontman Spider One--often accused of mimicking his brother Rob Zombie's horror-core shtick--had bought into his role as an arbiter of youth culture. For a fraction of the Powerman faithful, it was a bit too much to stomach.

"It definitely turned some people off," Spider One says. "It's funny because a lot of those messages were on the other records too, but since they were hidden in all these science-fiction metaphors, no one quite got it. Like, `When Worlds Collide' was actually about social stratification and the haves and have-nots of society. But everyone just thought it was about robots or something."

There was no mistaking the message of Transform, however. The song titles said it all--"Theme to a Fake Revolution," "A Is for Apathy" and "The Shape of Things to Come." "Assess the Mess," the album's spoken-word opener, was penned by noted author John Alfred Williams and railed against "Famine, bullshit, corporate greed/ Elections stolen like a bird steals seed." It was poetry set to punk--a far cry from the murky blend of rap and metal that characterized previous Powerman albums.

"I didn't want us to become just another big, dumb heavy metal band," says Spider One. "We were suddenly getting lumped in with bands like Crazytown and Papa Roach and I was like, `Hey, I never signed on for this.'"

Although Powerman will not release a new studio album until 2005, the band did recently unveil a collection of B-sides and rarities called The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Decorated with photos and hand-drawn fliers from the band's fledgling days in Boston, the album compiles 20 tracks that Spider One characterizes as "alternately good and terrible." Among the best is a cover of Bjork's chilling "Army of Me." Among the worst is "In the Eye," a shameless Chili Peppers ripoff on which Spider One reminds his listeners not to "fear the reaper."

"There weren't any consequences back then," he says. "We weren't thinking about a record or a fan base or a label. We were just doing whatever we felt like doing. Any band that reaches any level of success--whether on a major label or on an indie--usually finds that something's changed because they're suddenly doing it not only for themselves but for other people. So I always look back on that time as really the freest time the band ever had."

Ironically, the band may once again be free to pursue its own musical vision. In major-label purgatory since Dreamworks Records was swallowed by Interscope, Powerman will likely release future albums on Spider One's Megatronic Records. Meanwhile, the band has contributed three new songs to THQ's "WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw," a wrestling video game set for release in November. While some might see this as a significant artistic regression, Spider One envisions "millions of kids" performing simulated submission holds and mindlessly listening to Powerman songs eight hours a day.

"Years back, we had a song on the first Tony Hawk game," he says. "To this day, a lot of kids cite that as how they found out about us. You know, you get your songs played on MTV and on the radio and no one notices, but the kids are like, `Hey, I heard you on Tony Hawk.'"