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BEDLAM: With 35,000 CD's Sold, the Fringe is Growing By Robert E. Martin Prozak and Madness of Bedlam As the nightmarish cover of this issue attests, the musical duo known as BEDLAM are spawned from many facets of American Culture, but perhaps best encompassed by that space that F. Scott Fitzgerald noted as the 'dark place of the American soul where it is always 2 AM in the morning.' Going by their stage names of Prozak and Madness, while the notion of playing up the component of a 'character' or 'alter-ego' in the cartoonish vein of Spiderman, Batman, KISS, Alice Cooper, or most recently Slipknot is not necessarily a 'new' concept in American Culture, the fact that two guys from Saginaw can sell 35,000 CD's over the past five years without benefit of a major recording company or distribution network behind them perhaps proves they've tapped into strong sentiments that travel between fantasy & reality within the Zeitgeist of their generation. "Every group has an 'explanation'," explains Prozak, "But Bedlam is like society itself. We talk about the world being in chaos, which is Madness, and our generation is all on anti-depressants, which is why my name is Prozak." There are few parents or politicians or educators that find value in the music that BEDLAM creates (a fringe form of Acid Rap called 'Wickeds*#t') but that is one of the key reasons their music sells so well to alienated teenagers. Face it, from Elvis through The Stones and up to such American icons as Johnny Cash, anti-social behavior has always translated into popular appeal within the affected hearts of every generation. From John Steinbeck to Jack Kerouac and Richard Nixon to Tony Soprano, America has always had a secret space in its heart for the 'outlaw'. But can one in fact be 'moral' by exploiting immorality? Perhaps 'amorality' is a better term. In terms of musical inspiration, Prozak says he gets his ideas "by getting drunk, partying with people, listening to what they say. I'm into writing about 'real' things that people don't always care to listen about." "I'm the same way. That's why we work together so well," agrees Madness. "I walk around Saginaw and see people and their pain. I'll see a kid walking around naked and wonder to myself whether or not his Mom is a crackhead. We write about what we see on the streets and what's going on in the world. All the stuff people would rather ignore." Critics might argue that the music of BEDLAM exploits and exacerbates the lurid underbelly of an unhealthy situation, but the group fails to accept such judgements. "It all depends on how you look at things," notes Prozak. "That argument is a battle that's waged through time between society & artists." Fair enough. But if things actually improved economically & socially in America, would the group still be angry? "I think there's always something to be angry about," responds Prozak. "We'll always focus on injustices. Seeing as 90 percent of the music industry doesn't, we feel someone should." BEGINNINGS & BREAKS . . . Back in 1998 when in the popular Acid Rap group House of Krazees, Madness hooked up with Prozak. "They needed a body guard and he knows what to do with it so kicked in and we went on tour with Esham and House and then formed Bedlam, "relates Madness on how he met his partner. "We loved the same music," continues Prozak, "and our focus was to be what everybody isn't. We wanted to go back to the roots of Rap. All these Acid Rappers are trying to pull away from it and make radio friendly records, only we hated it. We embrace the harshness." But isn't that a paradox - to not want to create 'radio friendly' music and become successful? "Yeah," laughs Prozak. "We create for our own entertainment, which is kind of bizarre. But we make what we want to. We know that 99 percent of the population hates us for it and that's our gratification. We'd rather have 20 clubs say we hate your guts than the State Theater say we want to put you on a billboard. We get very political about the things we say - topics like the War and they hypocrisy that kids live with. We exploit the world for what it is. That's what we do." Amazingly, with such a defiant and independent stance, BEDLAM have managed over the past five years to sell 35,000 copies thus far of their five CD's. "We have a fan base and will always have one, whereas the 'one-hit-wonder' will hit big once and be gone," reflects Prozak. In Cincinnati recently the group packed 1,000 people into a small club. The same with Toledo and Newport, Kentucky. When the group plays in Detroit they usually pack around 400 people, and when Watering Trough promoter Rolly Collier brought BEDLAM into his restaurant & club on Gratiot, he also filled the place with 500 die-hard fans. "It was amazing," explains Collier. "I didn't know what to expect when I booked them, but when I looked into the parking lot and saw all these license plates from Chicago and Ohio, I couldn't believe my eyes. They have a dedicated base of fans. And this was o a Sunday." "It's funny," explains Prozak. "I was on the Internet and came to this store in Newport, Kentucky that was selling our records, only we didn't have any down there. So I got ticked and called down and asked where they got the records. It turned out some kid was bootlegging our CD's and putting them in stores. We told him to quit selling them and then he asked if he could buy them directly from us because he'd already sold 600. I didn't believe it, so we went down with 100 CD's and he paid for them up-front in cash." "Then we sold 400 CDs in Germany and also have a cult following in Russia, Australia, and Japan." So why all the attention from places outside the Detroit area? "I think its because Detroit had 'Wicked' Rap from day one," answers Prozak. "The further out we go the more relevant it is. In St. Louis, Texas, and Chicago right now it's very hot and kids are just getting into it. It's like Pearl Jam and Seattle. By the time the East Coast fell in love with Grunge Rock everyone in Seattle was sick of it." True to form, while most groups would get signed to a major label in a heartbeat with 35,000 unit sales figures over five years, the reason BEDLAM has yet to achieve this distinction is because they refuse to play the game. "We don't have Soundscan auditing," notes Madness, "which is like a credit report for Rappers. With our new CD out now called Bedlamitze Rise, we just signed up for Soundscan, so we'll see what happens." "The new CD has evolved and our skills flow more with choruses," explains Prozak. Our first few albums had a preset way about them and now the way our tracks blend is strange. Our whole rhythm has changed and it twirls into a different thing. I feel this new release is a combination of every record. We made sure one or two songs on the set strongly resembled something from each of our first four CD's and then we threw a few in that have a completely new style." The Future Unfolds "It's weird because ELEKTRA RECORDS was interested in us at one time," relates Madness. Yes, that's right - the label that signed such defiant icons as The Stooges, MC5 and The Doors was interested in BEDLAM. "I got this e-mail that I thought was a joke, but it turned out to be real," continues Prozak. "This A&R rep sent a package and his exact words were: 'Don't know what the hell this is and don't know how to market it.' He wanted us to change and throw a band behind what we did and said we could become another Slipknot. That would have killed everything. We're not a rock band or a Hip Hop group." In terms of future plans, the group hopes to move to Detroit by next summer. Plus, Prozak recently signed a label deal with Mike Clark. Based out of Detroit, Clark is a heavy-hitter producer that handled the first two Kid Rock albums and has six gold records under his belt. Clark has also earned a reputation working with acts such as Insane Clown Possee, George Clinton, Public Enemy and Primal Scream. "My solo project is going to be different," notes Prozak. "It will be on Clark's new B-4 record label and won't resemble BEDLAM but is centered more around insane & witty levels. It's more of a mind trip and has a lot of special guests such as The Dayton Family, MC Breed, Tech Nine, and Spice One. All these guests are nationally known, so it will have more of a professional industry standard to it." With all these heavy hitters assembled together, I'm curious as to why Clark doesn't assemble a traveling 'road show' similar to what they did in the early days of Rock 'n Roll. "With RAP it's almost impossible," admits Prozak. "Everyone has to have these huge egos, plus a lot of Rappers don't want to work. A lot of them are lazy and we're out there hustling." "BEDLAM would have never gone anywhere without us moving it," he continues. "For BEDLAM it's way harder to get ten fans than most of these groups. Such a tiny chunk of the population would consider buying our recordings that it makes it 10 times harder. In the mainstream if you pass out 10,000 flyers you'll probably sell 2,000 records. With BEDLAM it's about 500 record sales. Pushing BEDLAM is like pushing a grain of sand on the beach, but that's why we love doing it." In the immediate future, BEDLAM has two shows coming up hosted by Mike Clark on Nov. 14th at The Shelter, St. Andrews Hall and Nov. 15th at Jamestown Hall in Shields. The group will bring MC Breed into The Watering Trough on Dec. 20th and The Dayton Family on January 31st. "We stick to The Watering Trough when it comes to local club shows," interjects Prozak. "Rolly gave us a shot and paid us what we're worth. Most of the other owners treat us like we're nobody even when we pack their bar, but he immediately gave us our respect and believe in us." The group admits that while they have fans that range in age from 14 to 40, the average age of fan is around 17 or 18. But this is something Madness understands. "Back in 1995 I was the only white kid listening to Acid Rap and I got spit upon and beat up. Now all these kids are listening to it." For such a rarefied approach to the business, the biggest challenge BEDLAM wholeheartedly agrees they face is getting more fans. "All these people are so delusional with RAP," explains Prozak. "They have a big poster of themselves made as big as a wall that they hang by their bed and then call themselves successful. The true test is how many fans you have. Power is selling CDs and packing shows, not going to some local bar once every eight weeks and letting your friends buy you drinks all night. You've got to live & breathe it or you won't make it." With the new CD in local stores for two months now, the group hopes to sell 20,000 units in the next year. "We've sold 1,500 already," notes Madness, "and are already on the second batch. In Spring we'll go on a promotional assault." "The hard thing to swallow is that for every record we sell about 400 are getting burned down on CD," interjects Prozak. "But that's the way it goes. For one thing, if you live in Rhode Island you can't even find our material and if you buy online you need a credit card and a lot of kids don't have access to the Internet or credit cards. For us it's all about distribution, which is what we're working on now." "We are hard to categorize," concludes Prozak. "The average BEDLAM concert will have an 80 to 90 percent white crowd, the same as Rage Against the Machine. They also tend to form nasty mosh pits. That's why people think we're a rock band. They hear about the crowds and see our images and it doesn't look like a Rap Group, or a Hip-Hop group. They think we're this raging Thrash Metal band and then see us and say 'What the hell was that?" "BEDLAM is a spectacle," concludes Madness. "The classic quote is 'I hate rap but I love your stuff. People walk in with Iggy Pop and Ramones T-shirts and its weirdŠthe stuff you draw in. But then they fight to get on the stage and we let them. You can't be afraid of your fans." Whether a sign of the coming Apocalypse or an honest combination of brutal truth and righteous anger (perhaps both); BEDLAM is nonetheless an incredible phenomenon on the music scene. A phenomenon that nobody wants to talk about, but as sales figures attest, everybody is dying to sample a taste of. BEDLAM's complete catalog of recorded material is available on their website at: Hellridez.com |
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