About this Event

Bristol Psych Fest is beyond excited to announce our biggest show to date - we welcome The Black Lips with support coming from INSECURE MEN (Solo Set) and Table Scraps!



The story of the Black Lips began in Dunwoody, Georgia, a quiet, conservative suburb of Atlanta, in the year 1999. Born of a mutual love of Link Wray, The Stooges, and The Ramones, and sealed through a shared dedication to defiance, the band formed after childhood friends Jared Swilley and Cole Alexander were kicked out of Dunwoody High for separate, yet equally bad, behavior. The former classmates took their love of music and restless energy and channeled it into their newly found free time, and joined by friends Ben Eberbaugh and Joe Bradley, the Black Lips started playing shows around Atlanta, at house parties and bars. They spent this time honing their sound – garage rock infused with blues, psychedelia, and punk, plus a healthy dose of reckless abandon – and released their first 7-inch, “Ain’t Coming Back,” in 2002 on Die Slaughterhouse records (named in homage to the flophouse den they called home). Shortly before the band was set to head out on their first ever national tour, Eberbaugh was tragically killed by a drunk driver. Devastated but determined to carry on in Eberbaugh’s honor, the Black Lips hit the road as a trio just a few days later.



It’s been 15 years, but that passionate dedication to touring has never left the band. The Black Lips have released eight full- length albums since that first tour, and have traveled the country and the world extensively, making a name for themselves as an electrifying, must-see live act. It helps that the same mischievous spirit that helped speed up their exit from the educational system is still very much alive, thriving in its new environment on stage, resplendent with punk rock theatrics and miscellaneous bodily fluids, amongst other things. The band’s energy and unique “flower punk” sound helped them build a rabid fan base, and after releasing their first two albums through Bomp!, they put out the critically celebrated Let It Bloom on In The Red records. This record garnered the Black Lips features in Spin and Rolling Stone, and they were soon signed to Vice Records, subsequently releasing Los Valientos Del Mundo Nuevo, an ambitious album recorded live at a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, in February of 2007.



In their decade-long tenure with Vice, the Black Lips have evolved from wildly crooning over fuzzy, raucous music at house shows full of kids to wildly crooning over fuzzy, raucous music at international festivals in front of thousands of fans. They have toured consistently, with their zeal for travel taking them all over the world, and not without some international adventure: In 2009 the Black Lips went on their first (and last) tour of India, playing shows in Bangalore and Mumbai before chaos struck in Chennai after the band ditched their toned-down presence in favor of classic Black Lips capers, including some not so well received Lips-locking. After the same sex smooching and also Alexander baring his butt to the rowdy crowd, the tour’s sponsors pulled out and the band was nearly jailed, their passports confiscated by the disgruntled promoters. According to Swilley: “The first few shows, we were being really reserved because we didn’t want to offend anyone, but they kept telling us to do what we wanted...I guess “do whatever you want” didn’t include kissing each other, and I think Cole mooned the crowd, which is a huge no-no. We had to physically wrestle our passports back from the promoters. It was the scariest 15 hours of my life, but we got out of there.” The band ended up taking a 200 mile cab ride to the next province and hopped a flight to Berlin, narrowly escaping Indian prison.