COOS BAY, Ore. — Members of Shivtank made it perfectly clear that they were absolutely not cool being associated with the nu metal genre despite sounding exactly like it, confirmed sources.
“I think it’s easy to hear our down-tuned Ibanez guitars, our MC’s lyrics, and the fact that half of our band consists of former members of Coal Chamber, and pigeonhole us into quote, unquote, ‘nu metal,’” began bassist Mo Jacobsen. “But you have to remember, a lot of what our rhyming vocalist does is called ‘scatting,’ which is strongly influenced by and finds its roots in jazz. You can hear many examples of this in our new one, ‘Blood Blister,’ which we’re gonna play tonight to all seven people that are here.”
Music blogger and lifelong listener Blake Soderstrom expressed his concern that his past judgements about the band were misconstrued.
“When I wrote that Shiv sounded like a perfect mesh of Korn, meets Papa Roach, meets early Linkin Park, meets SA Martinez if he were a crying baby, meets a 13-year-old boy going through puberty, to me that means an entirely new kind of metal. A new metal, if you will,” stressed Soderstrom. “It doesn’t necessarily mean nu metal, but yeah, they’re nu metal. I even catch them wearing JNCOs and chain wallets from time to time. Let’s be real, no one is mistaking you for being in an indie folk band with that kind of fashion.”
Music historian Art Kimmel noted how surprisingly common this phenomenon was.
“It’s easy to look at these guys in full Adidas track suits, while their drummer sports a Chewbacca mask onstage and label them as ‘delusional,’” stated Kimmel. “But the truth is, this happens all the time. The worst case I’ve seen of Genre Derangement Syndrome, or GDS, was an emo band named The American Anthemists. Their lead singer hit higher notes than Brendon Urie and their monster popular hit was titled, ‘I’m Actually Glad You Pissed The Carny Off And We’re Stuck on This Perpetual Ferris Wheel Because I’ve Never Seen Your Hair Blow From This Height.’ And these guys were convinced they weren’t emo. We finally talked them down but it took a whole lot of depression meds and letting them write an entire album about the experience.”
At press time, the band tried to prove one last time that they weren’t nu metal by releasing a heavier cover version of George Michael’s “Faith.”