The Number Twelve Looks Like You – “We Don’t Want To Sound Like Anybody Else”
MTV.com reports: It’s impossible to compartmentalize a band as chaotic as THE NUMBER TWELVE LOOKS LIKE YOU.
Hailing from the tainted soil of New Jersey’s Bergen County, the frenzied six-piece — the masterminds behind Mongrel, which lands in stores June 19 — meld elements of extreme metal, death metal, jazz, grindcore and hardcore to create an unclassifiable sound that’s poles apart from other bands’. And singer Jesse Korman says that’s just the point.
“We don’t want to sound like anybody else,” he explained. “We stepped it up to the point where we’ve killed everything we’ve ever done previously, while a lot of bands that started out heavier have seemed to be going more melodic and easier on crowds — at least that’s the trend. It seems to be the path a lot of these heavy bands are going these days, and we didn’t want our fans to be like, ‘Oh no, it’s all just going to be melodic.’ We wanted to make sure we really kicked some ass [on Mongrel]. I don’t know where we fit in, genre-wise, but this record’s definitely something you’ve never heard before. On top of being incredibly heavy, there’s stuff in there that’s just the catchiest stuff I’ve heard in so long.”
THE NUMBER TWELVE LOOKS LIKE YOU, who worked on Mongrel with producer Casey Bates (Heavy Heavy Low Low, Gatsby’s American Dream) over a four-month period in Seattle, have attracted a wide array of fans since their formation in 2003. Lovers of many rock subcategories — including emo, metal, punk and hardcore — have fallen under the band’s spell. And TNTLLY’s fanbase is sure to swell this summer, as the band has been named as one of the acts for the third annual Sounds of the Underground tour, along with GWAR, SHADOWS FALL, CHIMAIRA and others.
“It’s always funny to us, when we pull up to a show,” Korman said. “We love looking forward to seeing who’s going to show up, because we can never, ever figure out our fanbase — and when we think we have, we’re just so wrong. It’s a mutt of a crowd, but you never want to hold yourself back from more fans.”
While there’s no thematic link between the Mongrel and the LP artwork, Korman said the cover features a humanoid creature that suffers from schizophrenia and that it embodies the unruliness of the music.
“We tried to make every song as different as possible, so the whole theme behind the album is mongrel,” he said of the album, which features 10 tracks in all, including “Jay Walking Backwards,” “Alright, I Admit It … It Was a Whore House” and “Paper Weight Pigs.” “You can’t really define what a ‘mongrel’ is — it’s just a crazy mutt — and all of our songs are just all over the place. We wanted this album to be just complete chaos, with no direction at all. And I think people will be surprised that the songs are actually good. Musically, we’ve really touched upon some genres that have absolutely nothing to do with our scene at all. And it works, somehow.”
(+56 rating, 19 votes)
What the hell is up with these long ass band names?
The number twelve looks like you? Really?
I have a better name:
“Let’s start a band so that we can be ‘cool’ and try to get laid.”
I need a drummer.
“Number Twelve Looks Like You” is an episode from the original Twilight Zone series. And a good one at that.
I had the privilege of seeing these guys play at a local club and by the end of the night my face had completely melted. Can’t wait until swing by my town for another show.
Im not looking foreward to this CD. They are gonna turn gay now.