Death By Sexy

by Brian J. Stokes

For Blue Weekly

Its no secret that many of life's richest rewards often arrive in our lives unannounced.

For example, when shopping at Wegmans last fall, little did I know that when I first purchased their roasted vegetable French bread pizzas I was actually purchasing one of the most delicious foods ever made.

Yes, you should go buy some. They really are that good.

Anyway, foods aside, I got another one of those pleasant little surprises last Wednesday night at Roustabout!, the weekly better-than-anything-else-youll-hear-in-this-town live music showcase at The Darkhorse Tavern.

Easily one of the slower Wednesday nights this town has seen all semester, I was nonetheless eager to go out that evening because I had reviewed the most recent E.P. of the headlining act that evening, a trio of brothers from Chicago that call themselves The Safes.

Of course, The Safes put on a pretty great show, but the band that totally blew me away that night was the evenings first act, a two-man outfit from Washington, D.C. called Death By Sexy (check them out at http://www.myspace.com/deathbysexy).

Yeah, its a pretty genius name for a band, but theres so much more here than just a cool name.

For a solid half hour, these guys (J.R. Sexy on guitar, Sexy Dexy on drums, both on vocals) played the blistering kind of simple rock n roll that this town rarely gets a chance to witness in person.

Surely a two person band that relies on rough guitar and heavily pounded drums will draw a lot of comparisons to a certain ex-husband-and wife (or brother-and-sister, or whatever) duo from Detroit, but these guys are so far from being bogged down by White Stripes pretentiousness that it might be the most appealing thing about them.

Songs like You and Me Are Gonna Get It On and I Want Your Grrl are ferocious, impossibly simple and even more impossibly catchy blazing guitar-and-drum pieces that could make even my grandmothers bridge club want to stomp around the room, fists pumping in the air while they spill their Chablis all over the place.

Its a shame that more folks didnt get a chance to witness this rock extravaganza the other night. In fact, Death By Sexy played their electrifying set to a near-empty room, but you couldnt tell it by the effort they displayed.

Roustabout! has really been firing on all cylinders for the last couple of months. Finding the most interesting talent from our region as well as booking national acts like The French Kicks is a service that not enough State Collegians take advantage of.

With the semester finally winding down and another pleasant State College summer on the horizon, make note to attend one of these Wednesday night bashes sometime in the near future.

Terrific bands like Locksley, a Brooklyn quartet with delightful Beatles influences, and Death By Sexy deserve a packed house every night they decide to come here, and its time we started giving it to them. - Centre Daily Times, State College, PA

A wise man once said "I pity the fool." And really, I pity the fool who has yet to listen to the glam-influenced garage rock duo that is Death by Sexy. This homegrown pair have been rocking my brain cells since I first heard "You and Me Are Gonna Get It On," and have yet to relinquish valuable grey matter. For over the top yet earnest rock'n'roll, you can't beat J.R. Death and Dex Sexy. Love them for their music, but also for their love of D.C., cheesy pop music, and intense hatred for Scott Stapp. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming dates. If you're lucky, after they rock your socks off they'll let you buy them a drink.

Touring is:

80 percent monotony, 20 percent pure adrenaline rush. Kind of like regular life, except minus the �adrenaline rush� part.

Our first gig was:

In Pennsylvania with a band called Trainwreck. They had great songs like �Medieval Poontang� and played the theme from "Gilligan�s Island" three times in a row.

Our favorite venue to play is:

The Black Cat. They have a shower and food there. Which is great when you�re touring. Either that or Gallaudet University, which was a totally surreal place to play.

Hygiene on a tour is:

Nonexistent. You aren�t really on tour unless you smell like a dead animal of some sort.

Our favorite thing about touring is:

Not having to go to our real jobs, not being in the same place every day, meeting new people (read -- ladies) and getting to play music every night.

And the least favorite thing:

Having to go back to work. Oh and other bands who take their crowds with them.

City with the best audiences:

Gotta give love to D.C., cause that�s where all our friends are, but Charlotte, N.C. was great, too. They have love for the rock.

The band member most likely to disappear after a show is:

Unless the bar disappears too, neither of us is going anywhere.

The tour bus/van smells like:

Heaven. If heaven is located in an unshowered marathon runner�s underpants. Which, technically, I think it is.

Laundry is: a) washed regularly, b) washed irregularly, c) we go shopping a lot:

Well, the longest we�ve been out for is a week, so thankfully no laundry has had to be done yet.

What's the most unusual item on your rider?

Umm. Rider? Talk to us when we�re playing to more than 10 people at a time, and then we�ll talk to you about a rider.

Who controls the music in the touring vehicle? And what are you listening to at the moment?

Whoever is driving controls the tunes. So that means Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Ashlee Simpson, Kelly Clarkson, Danko Jones, The Makers, Kings of Leon, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eagles of Death Metal, Curtis Mayfield, Wu-Tang Clan, Green Day, etc, etc. And I�m totally not kidding about the teen pop. We love it. Sing along to �Since U Been Gone� with us at the top of your voices.

Your new favorite watering hole after being on tour? And/or the best place to get greasy, hangover-curing food?

As far as places that aren�t the Black Cat, the Werehouse in Winston-Salem was awesome -- free beer all night long, whatever we wanted. We could drink Chimay all night long! Ultimately, though we wound up drinking PBR. Go figure. Hangover food -- it starts and ends with Taco Bell.

Most amusing memory from your current or most recent tour?

Either the guy in Winston-Salem who told J.R. he looked like Scott Stapp, or when J.R. was in Atlanta hitting on a girl, went to make a move, and she said, �You�re not going to try to kiss me are you?� Then she gave him her phone number.

Everyone has one. Please name the city you wouldn't ever play in again?
Or, if not a particular city, which venue makes your skin crawl?

The worst place we played was at a dance party in Providence. The crowd was there to dance to hip-hop, so when the music stopped(interrupting the shaking of their collective tail feathers) and we went on, it was not a good scene. When you finish a song and there�s no reaction whatsoever, you know it ain�t your crowd. Plus, we don�t sound anything like Ying-Yang Twins, which didn�t help anything.

Apart from the obvious cd, what's the merch item of yours you think people should shell out for?

Our t-shirt. It looks cool. Some girl in Brooklyn bought it without even seeing us play. Which was kind of weird.

What bands do you dream about touring with? And what bands do you dream about pushing off a cliff?

We dream about touring with Guns N� Roses circa 1992. And, of course, there are many, many bands that we would like to push off a cliff. We would say Creed, but they�re defunct, and Scott Stapp would just release his Jesus powers and fly away anyways.

Have you been up to the top of the Washington Monument?

Nope. And the fact that we haven�t doesn�t threaten our manhood at all.

What does 2006 hold for Death by Sexy?

Well, we�re finishing up recording our EP at the Bastille with Eamonn from the Bonapartes. It's tentatively titled You�re a Big Hit, and it will definitely rock your socks off. We�re trying to plan another tour sometime this year. Other than that, J.R.�s learning German, and Dex is finally taking some professional cowbell lessons from a Zen master, so that should be good.

What would you like people to be saying about Death by Sexy in 50 years?

Person 1: �Do you think they are finally gonna retire?� Person 2: �God I hope so. They are looking less like Death by Sexy and more like Death by Congestive Heart Failure every day.�

If you had to sum up Death by Sexy in just two words, what would they be?

Rock and Roll. We know that�s three, but the �and� doesn�t count.

Utterly unrelated, but please recite a line of poetry:

�Walk around the club With your thong in your mouth Put my dick in Take your thong out.� � Ying Yang Twins. That�s some Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou type shit right there.

And finally, it's BigYawn's round. What's your poison?

Whatever you�re drinking, we�re not picky. - bigyawn.net

This Alt Rock Duo, tosses Death By Sexy tambourines-complete with logo-to the crowds at their shows. An eye-popping t-shirt and a hip comic book, designed by DC Conspiracy member Evan Keeling, are among the offerings. The comic book chronicles the band's adventures corrupting intergalactic women with rock and roll and is based on their collection of show flyers. Lucky fans sometimes leave shows with a boa. - OnTap Magazine, 5/06

When Washington D.C.'s own Death By Sexy took the stage at Small's Saturday night, I could tell that we were going to be in for a real treat.

Sure, the Rickenbacker bass, the cowbell and the Flying V guitar, all rock and roll staples, gave the initial inkling, but the introduction that preceded the performance is what really got the crowd excited.

A tall friend of the band grabbed the microphone and just like a Pentecostal minister, he began feverishly to tell of a coming messiah. This savior wasn't coming to save our souls but rather to take them in exchange for a lethal dose of rock.

Death By Sexy then allowed their 70s-era stoner rock to fill the room. It was difficult to tell where the distorted bass ended and where the hyperdriven guitar began. All the while, the drummer wailed on the skins, the aforementioned cowbell getting a workout throughout.

The relatively lean crowd (by Saturday night standards) absorbed the fuzzy wall of sound that emanated from the amps. "Oh Baby!"s and handclaps were not spared as Death By Sexy unleashed eight songs, any or all which could have easily been featured on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack. After checking out their performance, I was compelled to go home and dig out my Black Sabbath LPs. I'm sure Death By Sexy would have been proud. - Patriot News

*8.5 out of 10*
"Straight-up, dirty rock n roll...expect great things from this band. Look into them." - bigyawn.net

"A hybrid of the Ramones and Journey: anthemic, bare bones rock with a flair for excess and indulgence." - Prince George's Sentinel

"Death By Sexy reminds us that it's actually a good thing to have a fun time at a show...God bless 'em for it." - DCist.com

"When you catch DXS Live, you too will say 'Whoo hoo hoo! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!'" - washingtoncitypaper.com

Those interested in hearing the rekindled roar of early 90s rock and roll flavored with a touch of D.C.’s early punk roots ought to make their way to the Black Cat on March 27 to savor the release party of Falls Church-based Death By Sexy’s debut LP.
That is, if you dare.
Turns out, there’s kinda, sorta, maybe a little bit of a curse that surrounds their first full-length work.
Having started work on the LP in the summer of 2007, the slow-moving process was continuously sidetracked by, um, “incidents.” None of them directly involved the band, comprised of frontman Jason Griffenhagen, bassist Christian Baldo and drummer Dex Fontaine. They just involved those around them.
“Every time we went in to record it, something happened,” Griffenhagen says. “The first time, the engineer’s laptop completely shut down for like six months so we couldn’t get the files off of it after recording at Inner Ear Studios [in Arlington]. After that, we had someone else re-record some overdubs ... and their $3,000 compressor blew up. One of his mics blew up too. Then we were doing a photo shoot. The guy’s flash broke in the middle of it, then when he got home he found out the whole camera was broken and all the photos were corrupted. When we started mixing it, the guy we were mixing with had to go to the hospital. Then we sent it to get it mastered. The guy was working on it for about three days, when the files got corrupted and he had to start the whole thing over again.
“We definitely started thinking this thing was cursed, so we changed the album name to Curse The Curse.”
And what finally proved to be the solution to the hex? It wasn’t chicken bones, witch doctors or a ritualistic sacrifice.
“The spell was broken when we actually started paying people to do the work, that seemed to speed the process up a little bit,” Griffenhagen says. “I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with anyone, but when you pay them, they tend to focus their energies more on it.”
The final, if delayed, result shows off Death By Sexy’s signature sound of fuzzy, highly-caffeinated rock and roll. It’s a sound “Pop Drivel” characterized by saying: “If indie pop is a Power Ranger, then Death By Sexy is Chuck Norris.”
That description is almost as colorful as their own, posted on their MySpace page that announces their sound is what would happen if the White Stripes, New York Dolls, Nirvana and a slew of other hard-rocking bands were “poured into your sister’s underwear drawer and melted everything inside.”
“Huh,” Griffenhagen says when asked about the description. “That’s not supposed to be up there. We’re much more refined now. We know which fork to eat with and everything.”
You can see Death By Sexy’s new refinement for yourself at the Black Cat next Friday, when they team up with the Blackjacks and Cobra Collective on the main stage to debut Curse The Curse. Bring $10 to get in ... and maybe a few shamrocks and rabbits’ feet wouldn’t hurt either. - Falls Church News Press