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It's a hundred degrees in Riverside, California, and, just as the paper promised, the air quality is "unhealthy for everyone." "Everyone," in this case, includes the members of Alien Ant Farm, all natives of this hazy middle-class suburb an hour east of Los Angeles. This afternoon they are cooling off poolside at the home of bassist Tye Zamora's girlfriend, trying to explain how they have exploded this summer with almost science-fiction speed.
Alien Ant Farm's second album, ANThology, has climbed into the Billboard Top Twenty, fueled by their hard-rock cover of Michael Jackson's 1988 hit "Smooth Criminal." The group - Zamora, singer Dryden Mitchell, guitarist Terry Corso and drummer Mike Cosgrove - has been on the road for much of 2001 already. And while they were supposed to get a few days off after wrapping up the Warped Tour, their schedule keeps getting tighter. Yesterday, their trip to a miniature-golf course was filmed by MTV News. Tomorrow, the band flies to Switzerland to begin two weeks of European festival dates. "This success is all new to us," says the tough-looking but likable Corso, 29, with a grin. "It's getting pretty big-time."
"Smooth Criminal" provides the soundtrack to one of the summer's most memorable movie moments: the scene in American Pie 2 when Jason Biggs Super Glues his dick to his hand. "The song's been a blessing," says Mitchell, 25, who possesses an off-center charisma and a curious "notch" hairstyle (think reverse mohawk) that's already being imitated by young metalheads. "The whole thing's been like popcorn overflowing," he says, emphasizing his point with popping sound effects. "Now I think it's important to get past this. We do have a lot of pop influence - obviously we're fans of Michael Jackson - but we also have our own niche that's not so pop-y, and we want to get that out, too."
Despite their goofy name and unlikely choice of cover songs, Alien Ant Farm are no novelty. The band is one of the most promising new rock acts of the year. They are accomplished musicians with a rigorous work ethic, and it shows: Their chunky guitar sound and stop-and-start rhythms are closer to new-metal Van Halen than to Black Sabbath retooled with rap beats.
If the band's music is ambitious, personally the guys couldn't be more laid-back: They're all tattooed slackers who look like they might be hanging out at 7-Eleven if they weren't members of one of the country's hottest bands. Corso says their unaffected manner has a lot to do with where they grew up. "We're from Riverside," he says with a shrug. "We were all just grubby kids who ran around in dirty old Riverside and got in our share of trouble."
All the band members worked day jobs until recently: Cosgrove, 25, serviced copy machines; Corso sold vitamins over the phone; Zamora, 24, worked at a bass manufacturer; and Mitchell worked for his parents' dating service. "I inserted envelopes, did bulk mail, and I'd f--- the chicks once in a while," he recalls.
"It was a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it, you know."
"You got the cream of the crop," says Corso.
"I got to cream in the crop," Mitchell corrects him.
Still, success hasn't been an easy climb. "I got to the point that my crappy car was repo'd while I was on tour," Corso recalls. "I was living in a house that had no power, no hot water, no telephone. It was crazy, just so we could tour....But I still got girls!"
Despite their struggle, the band - and the group's frontman in particular - seems to have been born to take the stage. "Dryden's been like this since he was two years old," says his father, Allan Mitchell. "He's always wanted to be the center of attention, and somehow now they've let him. So far they're handling it great. And it's unusual because they've done it all themselves and there is no leader. It's a pretty amazing thing to watch."
Alien Ant Farm formed as a Riverside supergroup in the mid-Nineties, all veterans of popular local bands with names like Brother Vibe and the Color Red. They released one album independently in 1999, the humorously titled Greatest Hits. They encountered little interest from record labels but managed to impress some key boosters early on, including Len Fagen, booking director of Los Angeles' Coconut Teazer club. Fagen liked Alien Ant Farm's demo and, as he'd done for numerous bands, including the Wallflowers, gave them his help and a musical home base at his club. "They were very unusual - they were well-spoken, humble, very committed to one another," Fagen says. "At the first gig, their musicianship was extraordinary. So many hard-alternative bands don't have a guy who can sing, don't have melody and are just basically screaming anger. For these guys it wasn't about, 'We want to be rock stars.' They were already musicians. And the reason they will be rock stars is because they really are dedicated musicians."
The group also profited from the mutual-admiration society it formed with Northern California's Papa Roach. The two struggling bands toured together and helped each other book shows up and down the state. When P-Roach got signed to DreamWorks, in 1999, the band brought Alien Ant Farm along, helping them secure a DreamWorks deal through Roach's own start-up imprint, New Noize. "It was always vice versa with us," says Papa Roach frontman Coby Dick. "If they got signed first and had the chance to say, 'You should check out this band Papa Roach,' it would have been the same thing. They showcased for every A&R, and it was the same story all around: 'We're not feeling it; what's your image?' And both of our bands were like, 'We're not going for image, we're going for music.'"
As Dick sees it, each Ant has his own important role: "Tye is the musical genius - very meticulous and likes things his way. Mike is the drum nerd and the drinker, and I can relate to him on that level. Terry is the more laid-back soul of the band - rocks on guitar, but he isn't as intense. And Dryden is the fuckin' freak: He's the straight guy who wants people to think he's gay. He's a flamboyant, crazy motherfucker."
"Smooth Criminal" video director Marc Klasfeld was impressed with the Ants' range of influences. "The guys had a lot of interesting pop culture references," Klasfeld says. "I was talking to Tye and Dryden about these real C movies - Super Fuzz and Jack the Giant Killer. For the video, they wanted to do something very Gummo, very white trash, but at the same time hyperreal and very much a Michael Jackson thing."
The result is a hilarious, contemporary salute to some of Jackson's most famous video moves. Klasfeld heard that the "Smooth Criminal" video was sent to Jackson for feedback, and that he liked it except for the fact that the young dancer featured was wearing a surgical mask. So they reshot the video without the mask; then Jackson approved the original version.
Now there's talk of Alien Ant Farm attending Michael Jackson's all-star concert in New York City in September, but the group hasn't had any direct contact with the singer. "Jackson's people said that he's getting a lot of satisfaction that a rock band is doing his song - that some of the people that he isn't popular with are digging his song," Zamora says.
Later in the afternoon, Alien Ant Farm take a drive through Riverside to look at band landmarks. First stop is the home where Mitchell lived when the band was forming; now it's being rented to family friends, and there are a few beer taps by the pool. They used to practice in the garage here, and they reminisce about driving home from L.A. gigs late at night and having to push all their gear up the steep driveway. "This was the last thing you had to do after driving home at 3 a.m.," says Corso. "Now we have people we pay to do that. I guess all that time dragging things up this driveway paid off." Then it's on to the Barn, a restaurant and club on the University of California at Riverside campus. This was the site of the first Alien Ant Farm performance, and the first time they played "Smooth Criminal."
"It came out as a fluke," Zamora says. "I just started playing it live for a few bars in between two songs. Our drummer joined and everyone went, 'Yeah.' " Cosgrove bought the cassette of Jackson's Bad album the next day so the band could get the arrangement down. "I didn't know the lyrics except for the chorus part," says Mitchell. "It took a bunch of rewinding to figure out what he was saying."
"He still got a couple words wrong," Zamora adds with a laugh. "We got the cassette instead of the CD, which had the lyrics. We were poor - poor enough to buy a cassette instead of a CD."
Finally, it's on to lunch, not far from the famous Mission Inn, where, as Mitchell explains in a little local history lesson, "I think Ronald Reagan porked Nancy on their honeymoon." Sitting at their old hangout, the Riverside Brewing Company, they order beer and burgers and notice that ANThology is next to Led Zeppelin II on the jukebox.
As they wait for their food, the bartender plays a quick blast of "Smooth Criminal," and the band members look at one other and grimace. "People like to break your balls around here," says Corso. The band looks relieved when its song is replaced by the Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R."
This place has long been part of a "Wednesday ritual," Corso says. "We'd come here, have a few, walk two blocks to Lake Alice. Their last call was at one, and then you'd walk across the street to Managerie, the gay bar, which was open until two. I used to go there and get free drinks. Guys would buy me free drinks, and I would let them because I had no money."
Things are different now, and Corso is making real money, but he says the band's roots are still planted firmly here. "We're four guys from Riverside," he says. "You've seen Riverside, so you know what that means. Anything that happens for us now seems surreal."
DAVID WILD
(RS 878 - Sept. 27, 2001)