There have been a number of brotherly bands in the music business: Van Halen, The Kinks, Jackson 5, Radiohead, DeBarge, Oasis, Hanson and The Jonas Brothers, but none of these guys bring horror-themed rock to the stage like CALABRESE.

Comprised of a death rock sound, CALABRESE has been described as melodic, hook-laden, catchy, fun, horror-theme rock with a punk attitude. Even Blasko of The Death Rides and Rob Zombie agrees that CALABRESE is “one of the top Horror Rock bands.”

The band has unleashed two full-length albums , 13 Halloweens, (2005) and The Traveling Vampire Show“, (2007) with They Call Us Death: Calabrese III due this coming March.

The Calabrese brothers caught up with me after one of their performances. 

1. First off, Happy New Year and give me a brief history of how CALABRESE got started.

Band: Happy New Year!
Jimmy: The world didn’t end so that’s good.
Jimmy: Dave alright go for it!
Dave: I never answer anything, my mother Judith Calabrese gave birth to us so the Devil…uh I can’t do this.
Dave: The band started in 2000-2001, 98? Laughs, what’s a brief history how do we sum it up?
Bobby: We were all into music and were all in various bands so then me and Jimmy decided that all the bands we were in weren’t quite what we had wanted so we made our own band like The Misfits and White Zombie, Ramones, punk rock stuff, so then we recruited Dave and beat him to learn how to play the drums so now he is emotionally scum, so that’s why he hurts his drums, jumping and acting crazy in front of the audience and that’s how it started and that was it.

2. How about your upcoming third release, They Call Us Death: Calabrese III, what can fans expect from this release in comparison to your other releases.

Bobby: The new record is a lot darker, at least I think so, and it’s a little technically advanced but we don’t want to look like we’re trying too hard. We listened to a lot of music that we like, and blended a lot of heavier sources and darker lyrics.
Dave: Everybody should pre-order it because it’s delicious.

3. Your lyrics are horror based obviously, but you tend to revolve your sources around Vampires, why the fascination with Vampires?

Dave: One word…Twilight.
Bobby: He saw the wrong movie.
Bobby: Type O Negative did that Brooklyn Vampire thing, so we can’t really base us off the Mummy or Frankenstein so we picked Vampires.
Jimmy: Before the whole Vampire thing exploded we blended our style into it.
Dave: The Lost Boys and all the classic Vampire films we had watched growing up got us into the whole Vampire craze.

4. Do you consider yourselves Vampires?

Dave: Yes.
Bobby: We might be it’s for you to decide. I suggest you pick up the new CD and decide for yourself.

5. When will They Call Us Death: Calabrese III officially be released to the ghoulish hands of the world?

Jimmy: I believe we deiced the street date would be March 20th towards the end of the month if you pre-order it you get it earlier along with getting some post cards and other merch signed by us.

6. Do you know what the first single and video will be?

Jimmy: Good question I think it’ll be one of the two songs we have on our MySpace page, which is either Black Anathema or Violent Hellfire, and we’re probably will be working with Brian Pulido (Spookshow Records) again. We have a possibility working with some animators here in California so we’re working on that.

7. Are you guys familiar with this other horror punk act, Church for Sinners? Would you ever consider touring with them or this other act known as the Dead Vampires?

Dave: We did a few shows with them at the Knitting Factory. We’re not too familiar with the Dead Vampires though we do know AFI.

8. What does 2010 have in store for Calabrese?

Bobby: The new CD release, new comic book, music video, everything we are finally living our dreams come true starring me, these guys aren’t in it. Laughs go out on tour, in the New York and Boston areas and the rest of the world.

9. How did you get to perform in The Graves film?

Jimmy: I got a connection with Brain Pulido we met him and he’s also a creator and writer making a variety of comic book characters and at the time we were making “Voices of the Dead” and he then offered us apart in his new movie and had a rocking time in our brief four minutes of screen-time.

10. Do you guys use any stage props or effects during your performances?

Jimmy: For the Halloween shows we use blood, we also use strobe lights among other effects.

11. Which horror icon does your band represent and why?

Jimmy: I don’t know hopefully we can sum it all up taking all the best horror icons out there.

12. Have you ever had a fan approach you with a wooden stake ready to strike?

Band: Laughs
Dave: I don’t think they’ll be a band then.
Jimmy: Nobody has yet come with us with a stake, except perhaps a steak and potatoes.

13. Do you have anything else to say to the Vampires that may be reading this?

Dave: Come out come out where ever you are.
Bobby: If there are any Japanese Vampires that promote shows in Japan we want to go to your country.
Jimmy: That’s about it, thanks for keeping Vampires alive.

Natalie Perez has been a Music/Entertainment Journalist for 7 years now having first started out with her middle and high school newspapers. She now writes for a handful of various online and print publications.

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