Picture Of Jim Mothersbaugh

MUSIC INTERVIEW: Valient Thorr

Valient Thorr is a band that comes close. The band comes close to stoner rock with punk abandon before it sidles up to metal veiled in Southern rock. And the band comes close for being from so far away. Valient Thorr is from Venus. No really, its members say they are from another planet.

After crashing to earth in 2000, the band took up residence in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, releasing its first album "Stranded On Earth" in 2003. Shared bills and tours with Motorhead, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Eagles of Death Metal, and Gogol Bordello, along with incendiary dates on the 2006 Warped Tour brought Valient Thorr - whose members look like the Vikings of the apocalypse - to the attention of fans that lean slightly toward the classic and heavy sides of American rock 'n' roll.

Valient Thorr's sound is an awesome and somewhat primitive blend. And it would seem that all the genres that go into this band's otherworldly blast want to claim the band for their own. The band mashes up - but is still true - to the spirit of all that goes into each facet of the music.

The band just got back from Europe and is now embarking on its next tour, which will bring it to Rochester for the first time. Front man Valient Himself called us from New Orleans while looking up show times for the new "Planet of the Apes" movie. We discussed headbanging for world peace, Devo, and what goes into the band's brand of rock 'n' roll.

CITY: People have said you're a band with a message wrapped in rock 'n' roll.

VALIENT HIMSELF: Basically a lot of people say we're a political band, and I say we are a political band. But if you get bogged down in what I like to think of as wedge politics - the things that push people apart from each other, putting a wedge between the people - you don't focus on the real things that matter in life.

Like what?

Bringing us all together so we don't destroy the planet, like our first planet was destroyed. I think people get so focused on celebrity gossip and bullshit that they don't think about what's really going on. How many fucking wars is this country in now? Four? And you have that chick Nancy Grace crying about one kid when there are kids getting kidnapped and killed all over the place every day.

Of mice and men

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Art of War

Three cups of tea, one man's mission to fight terrorism and build nations-- one school at a time

3 cups of tea