
Los Angeles-based alternative rockers BOYR!OT recently released their new single "Hollywood Nightmare" and to celebrate we asked them to tell us about the track. Here is the story:
"Hollywood Nightmare" is all about escape. We wrote this song when life was a mess (it still is). It's about embracing the chaos and letting it all go regardless of the consequences. We manifested the most wild Hollywood night imaginable and multiplied that times a thousand. We created a world that was both an underground punk show and a nightclub in Berlin. There's distorted guitars, drum beats, and fuzzy synths all wrapped up into one wall of sound that shouldn't work but somehow does.
In many ways, the song is a tribute to our neighbourhood, the Sunset Strip. The whole area is in a period of transition. Seedy dive bars are being replaced with luxury hotels and rock clubs are being pushed out by pilates studios. There is a sense that the area is dying, but there's also rebirth. The chauvinistic, old school rock geezers are being replaced by a younger, cooler, queerer crowd. The neighbourhood we live in is a metaphor for our band's purpose: we're bringing back punk rock, but for the girls, gays, and theys.
We wanted this song to sound modern yet nostalgic, harkening back to emo music's heyday and the beautiful catharsis of recession pop. During that time, from the mid-to-late 2000s, celebrities ruled the world and were swarmed by paparazzi wherever they went; the parties were legendary, especially in Hollywood; and the economy sucked, but people were having fun and the music ruled. Now, the economy is even worse, much of Hollywood is a ghost town, nobody parties any more, and the music sounds AI-generated. It's time we get angry again, let loose, smash some guitars, and dance like the world is ending tomorrow, because it probably is.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here
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