IT'S a familiar story: a politically engaged group who don't compromise with their lyrics are a major underground success but can't get arrested by the mainstream media. The group's first single, Hey Hollywood, was a caustic attack on the entertainment industry; the next, For My Country, dealt bluntly with the idea of patriotism.
These and other songs have been viewed by well over a million people on the internet. Despite the runaway success of the band's new single - about George W Bush's actions in Iraq - which musically sounds no different from any other pop-punk band out there at the moment, MTV refuses to play the song. Online advocacy groups are now springing up urging MTV and other music outlets to reconsider their unofficial ban. The real shame here is that musically the new single is catchy and commercial and the lyrics are more dramatically unequivocal than anything they've done before.
The first verse is "Freedom in Afghanistan, say goodbye Taliban Free elections in Iraq, Saddam Hussein locked up, Osama's staying underground, al-Qaeda now is finding out America won't turn and run once the fighting has begun. Libya turns over nukes, Lebanese want freedom, too Syria is forced to leave, don't you know that all this means. . . Bush was right! Bush was right! Bush was right!"
There's a few more verses in a similar vein before the message is distilled in the elided final verse: "Cheney was right, Condi was right, Rummy was right, Blair was right You were right, we were right, 'The Right' was right and Bush was right! Bush was right!"
Usually lyrics such as the above are set to a musical backing that features a banjo at the very least, but Bush Was Right sounds like a Green Day song. Its massive internet success has put The Right Brothers in the vanguard of a fast growing new underground musical movement in the US.
Previously, these sorts of sentiments were the sole preserve of country musicians (Toby Keith et al) but The Right Brothers are aiming their music at The OC generation. And whereas before the lyrics of this type of what can only be called "anti-protest" songs were vague patriotic mumblings, The Right Brothers are getting right in there and naming names.
What fascinates about The Right Brothers is how they dispense with all the "I Love My Country" waffle and replace it with songs about specific issues such as illegal immigration, taxes, racial profiling, liberal professors in the education system, appreciation for the US military and "America's right to defend herself regardless of what the rest of the world thinks".
It's difficult to get across just how big The Right Brothers are in their native country and how they are now gaining an international profile. It's almost impossible to hear their music because - as some of their followers would no doubt have it - the music industry is controlled by commie homos.
At present The Right Brothers are making capital out of their "outlaw" status. The fact that even iTunes won't stock their songs is seen as being proof positive that their message simply can't be accepted by mainstream America. Currently, they enjoy their inverted Sex Pistols image - too hot to handle and getting more attention for being ignored than for the music itself.
Is it all as black and white as it seems? Are they as out there as all that? Punk rock has had a long-standing right-wing chapter in the US and outspoken defences of the actions of the president are not as rare as you may think in the US entertainment industry. This is a country where quite a few Bruce Springsteen and REM fans smashed their records in disgust when both acts appeared at a series of pro-John Kerry musical rallies during the last election.
Either way, there's plenty more issue-based, right-wing rock on its way. Or as the Right Brothers prefer to call it: "Truth disguised as music".
