THE OFFICIAL SITE OF ARCADIA'S ONLY ROCK & ROLL GODS...
Enraged by a mediocre musical menu, and driven by an insatiable quest for western bacon double cheeseburgers, the INSULTORS exploded onto the LA music scene over a decade ago with a mission of divine pomposity: to become THE WORLD’S ONLY ROCK & ROLL GODS. And that, my friends, requires a lot of western bacon double cheeseburgers.
The INSULTORS’ ferocious musical stylings are a marriage of hybrid rock anthems, metallic meanderings, southern-fried sing-alongs, and an indignant fetish for breakfast cereal consumption. Over ten years, hundreds of riotous shows and thousands of subsequent arrests, the INSULTORS have created and maintained a following of fanatically devout friends and worshippers, known only as the Trash-Bag Army. Lead singer, Pete Carona explains: “Yeah, we all wear trash bags. Its like our uniform. We wear ‘em; our fans wear ‘em too. It unites us and signifies the garbage we all go through. Its also effective protection from all the crap that flies through the air at our shows.”
Borne of the fertile suburban soil of Arcadia,California, the INSULTORS came into being. Not as a calculated creative career path. Not as a perpetration of prepubescent protest, but simply because they were bored. Pete “Weird Beard” Carona (Lead Vocals), then in a conceptual punk project called ANNIHILATION (they never recorded nor performed any shows), and INSULTORS co-founder, Tommy “Lord” Montes (Drums) of speed metal pioneers LIGHTSPEED, created the seminal project after school in 1986. Pete recalls: “Me & Tommy were in my parent’s living room with our friend Jason (Jason “God” Ganley - guitar) and our friend Kevin (Kevin “Christ” Walton - keyboards). We were talkin’ shit about this guy, Ron Matty, from school, and started thinking up all these insults. We started messin’ with my dad’s piano, Tommy clicked on the rhythm machine, Jason played a few power riffs on his guitar, and we wrote “No Future For Ron Matty”. The INSULTORS were born.
The INSULTORS’ early gigs were a series of drunken backyard parties in the otherwise sedate Arcadia surroundings. Often ending in criminal disorderly conduct and resulting arrests, these formative shows began the ongoing adversarial relationship between the INSULTORS and the Arcadia Police Department. In time, the band sought to defile audiences beyond the San Gabriel Valley, and disgraced the stages of the Hollywood Strip. One such fiasco garnered the band the unique distinction of being blacklisted to “never play anywhere near Hollywood again.” One spectator recounts, “I saw ’em at Gazzarri’s in ‘88. It was right in the middle of the hair & glam era, and then these guys show up! They get the stage divers goin’, they get the mosh pit swirlin’, then suddenly they’re butt naked with their thingies floppin’ around, chanting ‘Bill Gazzarri is a Mafia Man’. Equipment got trashed; it was a full scale riot. That was SO bitchin’!!”
From these humble beginnings, the INSULTORS have gone on to refine their unique brand of unrefined dissonance for an ever widening audience. Regional, and later national, exposure were attained by the band’s television appearances on Hollywood Showcase and The Gong Show, the latter leaving Chuck Barris speechless, while Jaye P. Morgan cowered for safety, clutching her ceremonial gong-mallet.
The INSULTORS have maintained a revolving door line-up over the years, with a personnel history of Spinal-Tap proportions. The band’s family lineage has included notable players from established acts including REDD KROSS, DREAD ZEPPELIN, and LYNYRD SKYNYRD. And yet it is the Arcadia roots that unite these veteran entertainers to forge onward. The INSULTORS were invited to perform with MUDPIE and DR.STARR at the now legendary Arcadia JUNE-XMAS Festival. Adding anthems like “Sweet Home Santa Anita”, and “We’re An Arcadian Band”, to their set, The INSULTORS continued to serve as messengers from the garden spot of the San Gabriel Valley, proclaiming the pride and heritage of Arcadia: the home of the Taco-Lita Combo Burrito.
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After a 1990 Summer tour through Europe with the GRATEFUL DEAD, the INSULTORS emerged with a renewed vision of their musical legacy, and the cheap tactical ploy to sustain it: EACH SHOW WILL HENCEFORTH BE BILLED AS OUR LAST.
The stunt was a priceless source of media attention, and frenzied ticket-buying for each new “farewell” show. Eventually returning to the Hollywood strip from which they were shunned, The Insultors emerged victorious headlining multiple nights to sold out crowds at the world famous Whisky A-Go-Go.
The “farewell” performances of the INSULTORS continued for several years until the controversial San Diego Massacre blackened the horizon for the band and their irreverent Trash-Bag Army. The unruly festival crowd pushed and shoved their way toward the stage to catch a glimpse of the veteran rock legends (and their spontaneous cover versions of Grease Soundtrack favorites), resulting in a diabolical riot of biblical proportions. In the aftermath it was rumored that the ill-fated San Diego show debacle resulted in no less than 127 arrests, 47 individual acts of civil disobedience, 13 pyro incidents, 7 unlawful toxic emissions, and 1 alleged necro-bestial encounter.
With their long-overdue debut release, now available on AUNT SAM RECORDS, The INSULTORS music and message are preserved for new listeners and historians to puzzle over and debate for centuries to come. In encapsulating the musical highlights of their illustrious decade-long career, founding members Pete “Weird Beard” Carona and Tommy “Lord” Montes, along with long time alumni Brian Forden (bass), and Crazy Eddie (lead guitar), emerged from their secret recording sessions with long anticipated recordings of the INSULTORS timeless anthems. Diverse in scope, the disc's many moods and styles vary from the rollicking boogie of “Jim Beam”, the down home Southern crooning of “Kiss Our Ass”, to the thunderous declaration of the culinary significance of “Denny’s”. For long-time fans, the disc offers an inspired bonus live reading of “Sweet Home Santa Anita”, as well as the original 1986 demo recording of “No Future For Ron Matty”.
The INSULTORS have continued staging their "farewell” performances year after year to SRO Arcadia crowds for their high energy visual extravaganza. Always full of surprises, recent performance highlights have included appearances by guitar legend Pat O'Brien, Indian fire-dancers, and fellow Arcadian, Van Halen's own Michael Anthony. Frontman, Pete Carona, eloquently and poignantly encapsulates his Insultors' mission statement: “Buy my album and make me a millionaire!” And who are we mere mortals to deprive him of his dream.
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The INSULTORS, Kiss Our Ass!
Available Now on Compact Disc from
AUNT SAM RECORDS & ENTERTAINMENT
BUY IT NOW!!!
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