Five of the Funniest Bands Out There

 Sometimes, it's important to let loose and laugh at yourselves. Being a straight-stick-in-the-mud is a great way to get mocked yourself, so oftentimes the best way to avoid unwanted ridicule is to do it yourself.  Too often, we see bands that treat themselves like the second coming of Jesus, and everything they do is testament to their massive ego. This post is a salute to the few, the proud, the bands that are straight-up funny to see live - not because the music is bad, but because the artists are some of the funniest out there.


1. Protest the Hero

      Canadian progressive group Protest the Hero present one of the more unfortunate stories in music today. Combine an incredibly talented guitarist, drummer, and singer with incredible range and you get - minimal recognition, despite three albums under their belt. In any case, Protest the Hero are known for two things - their swept riffs and unpredictable song structure, and frontman Rody Walker (known affectionately as 'Rode the Chode')'s stage antics and long rants in between songs.
      I've seen Protest three times in the past two years - they are by no means a lazy band. Whether it was opening for Black Label Society, or fronting their own tour with Blind Witness and Today I Caught the Plague, Protest has brought their A-game to every show, while retaining a blatant sense of humor that lasts from soundcheck to finale.
       Avowed Trekkies (see above), the band never forgets to salute Leonard Nemoy or William Shatner (ESPECIALLY Shatner when they played in Montreal) during each set. Walker even wore a Star Trek shirt and engaged in a five-minute rip on Star Wars while on stage. At the New England Hardcore Festival, the band opened with sex tapes - of themselves, of course -before taking the stage with an epic rendition of 'Hot Cross Buns'. The absurd is kept at an all-time high, except when they're playing...no, even when they're playing. Walker will pull up his shirt, rub his nipples at the crowd, or lick the microphone seductively.
       They're even on reddit (read the comments, they're hilarious)! Despite their relative obscurity, the band is willing to kick back and laugh at themselves on a regular basis. It's this light-heartedness that makes them so likeable, and why I find myself constantly jamming out to 'Kezia' without realizing it.

2. Every Time I Die
        Ah, Every Time I Die. Ask any diehard metal fan out there, and this will be one of the only core bands they respect. The Buffalo quartet has also stayed mostly on the DL throughout their thirteen years on the scene, but have maintained a cult following despite playing Warped Tour for years. Despite never attracting mainstream attention, the band has put out six albums, and Andy Williams (right)'s facial hair has maintained one of hardcore's most hallowed sacraments.
         Known for their frenetic stage presence and intense energy, the band's completely organic sound (not synths here!) is a beacon of clarity in a scene dominated by pop-punk clones who think they can scream. Even more apparent is their bitingly sarcastic sense of humor which, when blended with mastermind Keith Buckley's lyrics, gives rise to songs as sharp as 'Goddamn Kids These Days' (a criticism of the hardcore scene of the late naughties) and 'Romeo A Go-Go' (which calls out people who fight for love as absurd). As far as being on stage is concerned, the band's energy prevails, but their method of relaying their lyrical message - through sarcasm, especially through sarcasm - is what makes them such a funny band.
         It's a different kind of funny. One that requires you to read into the band's lyrics and realize that the world itself is an absurd place, and the band takes that message and runs with it, exaggerating it to its fullest potential. It's probably this ability to write actually meaningful lyrics that require thinking about that has kept the band out of the mainstream for so long, but damned if they aren't one of the most talented out there.

3. The Acacia Strain

       One of my favorite bands for their message of extreme misanthropy and utter musical minimalism, the Acacia Strain's sense of humor is completely absent from their music, which is only humorous when how completely over-the-top it is ('The thought of your genitals makes me sick/You could fit five cocks up that ass/Five cocks up that ass!"). Instead, the band's sense of humor comes from how they conduct themselves off the stage.
        Firstly and foremostly, every music video the band has put out has been HILARIOUS, but my favorite has to be theirs for 'Skynet', which features the band dressed as country hicks infiltrating and taking over a show. When I saw the band this summer on the Scream It Like You Mean It! Tour, the band left the stage to a recording of a heavily-lisped person bashing the band by saying 'they should chop off their hands and shit on them, and then throw em down a well and shit on the well!' along with an Abba song.
       The band, who recently put out their fifth album Death is the Only Mortal, put out this interview. You know it's gonna be good when the first thing that's said is 'I'm Vincent. I'm better than you'. The band even mocks their recent signing to Rise Records, which is in and of itself hilarious as the label has probably never seen anything as heavy as the band. The description of the band on facebook is one word: HEAVY. The period was added. The Acacia Strain does not care for your pitiful punctuation.

4. The Dillinger Escape Plan

     Here we have a band that's not funny and doesn't try to be in the slightest. Their music is as chaotic and ridiculous as how they behave on stage. Go to a DEP concert and you have a chance to see:
         1.) The band crowdsurfing more than the audience.
         2.) The band members on top of amps, stage wiring, etc.
         3.) Guitars being tossed around like candy, sometimes during 1.) and 2.)
         4.) Choke grips, spin kicks, and all the other accoutrements of a metal show.
       And therein lies why the band is so funny - it's because they're so irrevocably, unconditionally insane. DEP's stage presence is like watching a man enter a knife fight with an octopus. What's more, everyone has seen the band put on a different show - some people will laugh about how in '99 the band had a blowtorch, others will say in '05 singer Morris Plains hung upside down from the rigging for two minutes.
       This inherently makes the band the type of 'I'm scared for my life' sort of funny. It's so insane you almost need to pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming, and the band's rapid change of speed, style, and melody heightens both the tension and the sense of the absurd. It's a kind of insanity that you need to see to believe.

5. Killswitch Engage (Mostly just Adam D.)

     The seminal Massachusetts metalcore band is known for leading the charge in the current wave of metalcore (along with August Burns Red) and the New American Wave of Heavy Metal (with Avenged Sevenfold) on first glance, seems to be a particularly serious band. Uplifting, yet no-nonsense lyrics and metal elements aside, the band is one of the funniest to see if only for the infamous stage antics of lead guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz - who, as an aside, helped produce albums from artists on this list already (TAS' 3750 and ETID's Last Night in Town) to releases as recent as The Devil Wears Prada's Dead Throne. He's an accomplished man, no one's doubting that, but on stage, the beast truly is unleashed.
       With a predilection for short shorts and capes, Dutkiewicz is known to steal the microphone on multiple occasions to yell inanities at the crowd in between songs, mock emo kids ('DRINK BEER, FUCK WOMENS!'), or edit song titles ('I WANT A GIRL WHO'LL WEAR MY BALLS LIKE AN ICEPACK.')
        While it might annoy Kerry King, he keeps on going. Known to wear Katy Perry shirts that are multiple sizes too small, and walk like a dinosaur on stage, Adam D's sense of humor spills over to the rest of the band as well. The music video for their cover of Dio's 'Holy Diver' takes the original and adds a twist of the ludicrous. And yes, that's Adam D as the princess. That's to say nothing of the fact that pictures like these pop up. While overall a rather serious band, it's Adam D's ability to make the crowd laugh that makes Killswitch so beloved.
       In closing: yes, he's holding a sword in his wikipedia photo.