BIO
The hype surrounding The World’s Most Dangerous Pop Band started long before they’d ever played a show.
In fact, the buzz about THE ARMED FORCES – the nom de rock of 21-year-old phenom Brandon Jazz – started circulating around Nashville the moment word hit the street about his forthcoming debut album.
The excitement was due, in part, to the vested interest of TRL heroes and fellow Nashville natives THE PINK SPIDERS, as well as the stir Jazz had caused while fronting his previous band, Memphis, TN’s BROOKLYN UK.
Now, with speculation in full force, THE ARMED FORCES proudly present their debut outing, Modern Gospel for Modern Men & Women – a buzzing pop-rock-and-soul beehive that fuses the fuzzed-out punk of THE RAMONES and RANCID with the power-pop savvy of ELVIS COSTELLO and the good-times immediacy of THE JACKSON 5.
To produce the album, Jazz enlisted his former college roommate, Jon Decious – better known as the stylish bassist for THE PINK SPIDERS. Taking advantage of Nashville’s tight-knit underground music scene, the duo utilized a revolving door of guests – many of whom would show up to the studio with a random instrument, invent a part on the spot and record it within 20 minutes – and in doing so constructed a spontaneous and raw pop album that hisses like a live wire.
Each of Jazz’s three-minute masterpieces is dripping in punk pathos and packed with at least 30 minutes’ worth of hooks. It’s a little trick of the trade Jazz likes to call the Trojan Horse strategy: “Infiltrate the system and destroy it from the inside out,” he winks. “Anybody can throw stones and anybody can write a pop song. It's only relevant when you can throw stones in the format of a two and a half minute pop song that both drug addicts and cheerleaders can sing along to.”
By leaning on the Motown aesthetic as heavily as the defiant attitude of punk rock, Jazz and Decious managed to create a complete rock-and-soul blowout, a modern-day interpretation of THE CLASH circa 1979 interpreting SAM COOKE circa 1959. It’s at once a faithful reading of Jazz’s musical forefathers and a complete re-imagining of their sound. So regardless of whether you interpret the word “gospel” as “good news” or “infallible truth,” you’re right.
As Jazz explains, the album’s title is actually meant quite literally. “It's gospel because it's about gratitude and celebration and catharsis, about appreciating the fantastic and the miserable. The record is the story of all the people I know and all the people I've been – freedom fighters, nihilists, lovers, criminals, rebels, outcasts, hipsters.”
The release of Modern Gospel marks the next milestone on a journey that began about a year ago. Jazz abruptly walked away from BROOKLYN UK at the height of the band’s popularity, packing up the contents of his Memphis apartment and moving back to his hometown of Nashville. The motives for leaving were plentiful – creative frustration, a traumatic breakup, an armed robbery by a vagrant and a prostitute in a back alley off Beale Street – but that wasn’t what drove him. What pulled Jazz back to Nashville was a simple idea, a concept and a sound in his head that, for the sake of his own sanity, he had to exorcise.
The result – which turned out to be THE ARMED FORCES’ initial demos – caused a din that over time has gotten progressively louder. What started as a solo project has grown into a collaborative effort that involves Jazz’s legions of fans as much as it does Jazz himself. Their fingerprints are all over the album, and now they’re taking Jazz’s gospel to the streets. The revolution has begun.
“I want complete and total take-over. I want it all. And I want it right now,” Jazz says mischievously. “Parents, we will have your kids sneaking out after curfew, driving around singing songs about quitting their jobs, doing drugs and blowing up buildings. We've got a plan for you, America.”
Brandon Jazz – cult leader? That’s for the kids to decide. The leader of The World’s Most Dangerous Pop Band? You better believe it.
PRESS QUOTES
JERSEY BEAT :
"Fuzz guitars, squeeling-tire feedback [and] glam rock vocals... Every song here has "Hit" written all over it"
REDEFINE:
"This [album] will, no doubt, land him on a major radio station near you very soon."
MUSIC-REVIEWER:
"Full of clever lyrics and energy and clever hooks."
AVERSION:
"Modern Gospel slings songs that gratuitously reference drugs, cheap sex and hangovers... like The Rolling Stones reincarnate."
POP MATTERS :
"Jazz and co. have the retro-rock strut down...[and] implement its retro-kitsch well."
ROCK AND ROLL REPORT:
"A great band [with] a definite, modern twist to their powerpop hook."
ROCK FREAKS:
"Just raw enough to appeal [to] the scenesters but soft enough to have mainstream appeal, while being miles better than the majority of what's in the charts these days"
PLUG IN MUSIC :
"Reminds you that rules are made to be broken, especially in rock ‘n’ roll." | 
