Roy And The Devil’s Motorcycle
Roy and the Devil's Motorcycle are a four piece from Switzerland. Legendary in underground circles, for the past 20 years they've gained obsessive fans and freaked out untold numbers of unsuspecting gig?goers across the continent. The three music?obsessed Staehli brothers all picked up guitars and set out on a mission to set their, and our, little world on fire. All this time they’ve been nurturing their raw power together, giving them a psychic force of rock 'n' roll energy.
Once described as the strangest brothers in rock and roll, they’re a single organism. Everything they touch has a warped feel to it; the reverb, distortion and lurching harmonics swirl and boil in the melting pot. Initially, their influences seem obvious: old, dusty blues records, gospel, dirty garage, Spacemen 3, the Velvets and Link Wray; but dig deeper and their love of free?running experimentalists like Lee "Scratch" Perry, Red Krayola and Godz becomes clear.
After a few singles on the super?underground Record Junkie label, they unleashed their raging punk? blues FORGOTTEN MILLION SELLERS cult classic lp on the Swiss primitive Voodoo Rhythm label in 1998. Some maturing (and only a little mellowing) led to the scorched?earth soundtrack BECAUSE OF WOMEN in 2006. By this time they’d already been regularly touring across the continent, playing with the likes of Acid Mothers Temple, Sonic Boom/Spectrum, Back Lips, Disappears, Strange Boys, Psychic TV, and Martin Rev (SUICIDE).
Always self?made to the bone, cutting their own path at their home studio in rural Switzerland, the band released their 3rd album in spring 2012, TELL IT TO THE PEOPLE. With its reaching?out to some pastoral free?jazz energy, and the groovier influence of new drummer Alain Perret?Gentil (the Come ‘n’ Go) it’s a fresh, knife?cut crystalline transmission from the psychedelic world of Roys.
