"I've read The Dirt (by Motley Crue) twice, and until you actually get out there, once you get out there, everything you hear and see about rock 'n' roll, it's like, times it by 10--it's just crazy."
The above quote comes courtesy of a just-published interview with Austin Winkler, lead vocalist for Hinder, the Oklahoma-based hard rock group whose new CD Take It To The Limit is currently hitting the market. And I do mean market, as the CD is available in PG-, R- and even X-rated versions, depending on the age-appropriateness of projected listeners' testosterone levels--although, Winkler notes, the X-rated one is "the record that you want, I promise you that" (nod, nod, wink, wink).
The big news here, though, as alluded to at the top, is that, while Winkler's grasp of mathematical concepts may leave a little to be desired ("times it by 10"?), he can and does enjoy hunkering down with a good book every now and then--especially if it's a rock biography, and just so long as the subject matter is Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses, Van Halen, or other rock bad boys that he and his fellow Hinders grew up idolizing back in the 1980s.
"It's absolutely mind-blowing what they got away with in the '80s," says Winkler. "And maybe that's a part of the reason why rock isn't pushing the limits anymore, because maybe they are scared that it could get that way again and it could get out of control like it was in the '80s."
Of course, whether Winkler and his colleagues, they of the double-platinum 2006 debut album, will indeed be able to make good on their new follow-up CD's title promise remains to seen.
And I know it may hard to take it to the limit on a PG level, but hey, America is all about choice, isn't it? I'm sure all astute hard rock fans out there can appreciate Winkler's interest in great literature. Moreover, it's hard not to be impressed by his band's overall interest in copying the great hard rock--bet you think I'm going to say the sound/style/image fill-in the-blank of Crue, or GNR, or VH; well, I'm not--the great hard rock logos that, as we all know, mean so much to any young, loud, and snotty hard rock band that wants to sell its fair share of T-shirts, headgear, etc.
Sure, everything else about Hinder might sound recycled, from Winkler's David-Lee-Roth-meets-Axl-Rose-in-hell vocals and endless guitar shreds seemingly picked out of old Sunset Strip dumpsters to the kind of shlocko power ballads that would make even Poison gag. But seriously, when was the last time you saw a logo that you could look at forwards, backwards, right side up or upside down and have it be exactly the same?
Is this genius, or what?