Punkabilly

Punkabilly

Psychobilly is a fusion genre of rock music that mixes elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and other genres. It is one of several subgenres of rockabilly which also include thrashabilly, trashabilly, punkabilly, surfabilly and gothabilly. Merriam-Webster defines it as "music that blends punk rock and rockabilly"; another dictionary defines it as "loud frantic rockabilly music." About.com defines psychobilly as "tak the traditional countrified rock style known as rockabilly, ramp up its speed to a sweaty pace, and combin it with punk rock and imagery lifted from horror films and late-night sci-fi schlock,... gritty honky tonk punk rock." Psychobilly, "while rooted in the twang of rockabilly, owes just as much to the sound of straight up three-chord punk, often with a dose of thrash metal."

Psychobilly is often characterized by lyrical references to science fiction, horror and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other topics generally considered taboo, though often presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion. It is often played with an upright double bass, instead of the electric bass which is more common in modern rock music, and the hollowbody electric guitar, rather than the solid-bodied electric guitars that predominate in rock. Psychobilly gained underground popularity in Europe beginning in the early 1980s, with the UK band The Meteors, but remained largely unknown in the United States until the late 1990s. Since then the advent of several notable psychobilly bands, such as the US band Tiger Army and the Australian band The Living End, has led to its mainstream popularity and attracted international attention to the genre.