By John Pecorelli
Alternative Press magazine
"We didn't bring a harpsichord in for this album or anything," mumbles Lollipop drummer Dave Hershey, referring to his band's gruesome second long-player, Sucked In, Blown Out (Amphetamine Reptile). "It's still hard rock, and you could count on one hand the amount of bands out there playing rock."
Not hard rock of the Aerosmith/Pearl Jam variety, mind you. Not even the MC5, the band to which Lollipop are often compared. The hard rock these Buffalo, New York natives excrete is more like Captain Beefheart grinding in a garbage disposal at 78 rpm - a seething, adrenalized mass of twangy aggression. The inspiration?
"Twenty years' worth of boring music that you can't escape," says singer Mark Feliciano.
Sucked In, Blown Out, like the band's 1996 AmRep debut, Dog Piss On Dog, continues Lollipop's conspicuous disregard for pop predictability in favor of sharp, smarting aggrobilly. It's a challenging listen, all right, and it's certainly quite violent - but don't call it hate rock (as I have in the past).
"I wouldn't call it 'love rock' either though," Feliciano says with a chuckle. "But you have to have a lot of distortion to hate. And you have to have a lot of digital effects to hate."
"We are not hippies, though," adds Hershey. "Longhairs, yeah. But not hippies."