MTV's Headbangers Blog announced yesterday the signing of Johnston, Iowa's DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS to THE END RECORDS. DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS features Slipknot percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan behind the kit, along with Stella Soleil (vocals), Ty Fyhrie (guitars), Jeff Karnowski (bass), and Michael Pfaff (organs, keyboards).

Shawn Crahan explains to Headbangers Blog:

"Dirty Little Rabbits is my new Slipknot. I’m playin’ drums, and I’m a songwriter and this is the band I’ve been waiting to be in my whole life. And it’s more of an alternative band than a metal band. It’s everything I’ve ever been into. And it’s a thought process, it’s a mindset. And this will be the band I end my life with.

"A lot of people don’t know I’m more or less an alternative person in art and music. I didn’t grow up obsessed with metal. But that’s most of the beauty behind Skipknot. You’ve got guys that are completely dedicated to the metal, and then you’ve got guys who never even listen to it, like me. And you come together and make this thing called Slipknot that happens to be a metal band, and that’s awesome because I always believed when I got together with my brothers that they were writing music that I never heard or felt and that’s why I went with it.

"And I brought the art to this music, and throughout time I developed all my musical skills and – boom — here I am with Dirty Little Rabbits and it’s finally everything I’ve ever wanted in a band."

Read the entire interview at Headbangers Blog:

http://headbangersblog.mtv.com/2008/10/14/exclusive-interview-slipknot-percussionist-shawn-clown-crahan-signs-deal-with-the-end-for-his-band-dirty-little-rabbits/


DIRTY LITTLE RABBITS bio:

We are the Dirty Little Rabbits.

It all started when Rabbit 1 met Rabbit 2 at Sid’s. Sid’s a mutual friend, and he’s got this fantastic studio. It all started at Sid’s. The jam was epic. Rabbit 2 found himself at the bench of a Hammond B-3 organ for the first time ever. The music ended at 4 a.m., and the phone call that started it all happened just four hours later.

Next came Rabbit 4. Rabbits 1, 2 and 4 met in a town called Otho and recorded two songs that later became known as “Misfits” and “Poor Poor Woman.” These were the first two songs in the Rabbits' repertoire. Soon after the Otho Sessions, Rabbit 2 introduced Rabbit 5 to Rabbit 1. The band was set:  Rabbit 1 on drums, Rabbit 2 on keys, Rabbit 4 on guitar, and Rabbit 5 on bass. We were thinking it was a pretty great band, but...

Shouldn’t we have somebody sing? Rabbits 1 and 2 searched the Midwest for a singer. No luck. Then all the Rabbits search the entire country. We needed not only a singing Rabbit, but the best damn singing Rabbit in the country.

Strangely, it just so happened that Rabbit 1 had known the singer all along. So it was that the most beautiful rabbit of all, Rabbit 3, entered the clan of the Dirty Little Rabbits. In a bathroom of a hotel in L.A.—where all Dirty Little Rabbits do their best work—Rabbit 3 did her stuff on “if,” which we think will go down in history as one of the most beautiful songs ever.

The band was now complete. Rabbits 1, 2 ,3, 4 and 5 started playing, and playing, and playing…and playing and playing. We practiced in Rabbit 1’s basement, day in and day out, occasionally surfacing for a show in Madison, WI, or Des Moines, IA, or Omaha, NE…or wherever they let Rabbits plug in.

Songs were pouring out of us, one after the another: “Misfits”, “Poor Poor Woman”, “Dark”, “Hero Poet”, “Simon”, “Rabbit Holes”, “if”, and others! Then we wrote “Hello”: “hello, it’s so nice to see your face again. Hello, it’s so nice to see you. All good people find one another. Hello, it’s so nice.”

We captured three of our new songs in the studio and released them on our EP, Breeding. “Hello”, “I’m So Beautiful” and “Hero Poet” marked the official beginning of what will be a long and wonderful saga.

Then we opened a 27-date tour for our friends Stone Sour, taking us from Fargo, North Dakota up to New England, then down the east coast to the southern reaches of Florida. We laughed, cried, got sick, got well, wrote songs, changed songs, grew up as a band and met many new friends.

When we returned from Florida we went right back in to write great songs like “Professional Hit,” “You Say,” “Leave Me Alone,” “I Love You,” “Happy,” “Same Mistakes,” “The Gas Lighter” and “Put it in the Rock”. We are recording our full-length album very soon, and in the meantime, we will be playing on as many stages as we can find.

We will never stop...

-- Dirty Little Rabbits.

Links:
www.dirtylittlerabbits.com
www.myspace.com/dirtylittlerabbits