Black leather fingerless gloves. Love Club and Stripping Glitter. Tattoos of strange designs in stranger places. Cahokia Mounds and MoonPandas. What link ties these odd and peculiar things together? Answer: the Lazer Dudes. Not much help? Maybe figuring out what possibly constitutes a Lazer Dude could aid in solving our puzzle.
First and foremost they are a five-piece rock band based in Springfield about to release Sexorcism, a full-length CD written, performed, recorded and produced by group members, collectively known as the Lazer Dudes. But knowing they make a band doesn’t enter into the essence of what these Lazer Dudes things really are or do.
Breaking down the separate words might be a solution. A dictionary definition of lasers as “a highly focused beam of synchronized single-wavelength radiation” offers a clue, but with the “z” spelling is it a different type of laser or what? The mystery continues and multiplies. The band is certainly highly focused on something, and from the album title that something would seem to be sex. If now we plop “Dudes” into the mix, a certain sense of what is going on begins to develop.
With the simplest definition of “dudes” being a male of the human race, then by adding our understanding of “Lazers” as highly focused beams of a sexual nature, the band name could be interpreted simply as a boy band centered on themes of sex important to the male gender. Perhaps lyrics might offer another clue to the Lazer Dudes quandary. A quick listen to Sexorcism is all that is required to settle the name debate. In fact, the first human voice heard is a melodic and sensual “whooooo” like a sweet howl of enticement. Then the actual opening lyrics set the mood with a “you’re full of desire” and “my heart is screaming” and “your body is steaming” and the whole album just goes on like that from one sexual connotation to another without apology or contrition but plenty of gusto and intent, full to the brim with tongue-in-andon-cheek references to brash and brazen sexploitation.
“Electro-rock-sex-revival that’s how we describe the music. A party like a revival,” said Josh Catalano, lyricist, guitarist and lead vocalist of the Lazer Dudes. “It’s straight ahead dance rock with synth-sounds on top with no cuss words anywhere.”
So now there is verification of the sex factor and from the sketchy liner notes all band members appear to be males, but still the riddle of where the name originated remains to be solved. Perhaps the source of the appellation might shed light on the mysterious meaning of the Lazer Dudes moniker.
“Jay Benoit, our drummer, took a trip to Cahokia Mounds in southern Illinois. He likes to go there. It clears his mind,” explained Catalano, referring to the mysterious Native American city of a thousand years ago located east of present-day St. Louis. “The name came to him as an epiphany and as soon as I heard it I wanted to play in a band called the Lazer Dudes.”
Catalano, also known as the lead vocalist and songwriting guitarist of local original rockers the Damwell Betters, wasted no time in forming a side project with fellow DB’ers Marc Broomby (guitar, vocals) and Jordan Laier (bass, vocals), plus versatile keyboardist Rory Davis and inevitably, the epiphany-oriented drummer, Jay Benoit.
“Jay came up with the name in November of 2008. We had our first practices in January