Los Angeles’ punk-rock veterans The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs have announced that they will be returning and releasing their first new album in over 20 years. The new album, One More Drink, will be released on March 19th via the Cleveland, Ohio-based record label, Dead Beat Records.
“It’s so perfect we are doing this album on Dead Beat Records,” says bassist Dino Everett. “We’ve known Dead Beat founder Tom Spencer since our early days playing Bar Deluxe and Al’s Bar. He’s still around and we’re still around, so rock ‘n’ roll is still alive and well!”
In their return, The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs are led by original members Frank Meyer on lead vocals/guitar, Everrett on bass, and Mike Sessa on drums, with the current lineup being rounded out by newcomers Bruce Duff on guitar and Geoff Yeaton on saxophone. For One More Drink, the band wanted to pay homage to their roots, so the record features guest appearances from Dramarama frontman John Easdale, Adolescents guitarist Rikk Agnew, and Screamers/45 Grave keyboardist Paul Roessler.
The result of it all is an album that is nothing short of dynamic — showing their range as creatives, navigating everything from power-pop numbers like “We Are the Ones (We’ve Been Waiting For)” to intense tracks like “Rumbling’ Train,” “Switchblade Knights,” and “Fast Fucked and Furious.” The album is full of twists and turns, but after 20 years between released, The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs went all in and came out with a record that is unapologetically and wholly them.
Of course like many other artists in the current modern times, COVID-19 has left them without their ability to tour and perform shows. This has, in turn, allowed the band to use music videos as their main form off visual expression — something they really debuted last year with “Warzone” serving as a music video advance of One More Drink. Now, Substream is thrilled to be teaming up with The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs to exclusively debut the follow-up music video, which is for the aforementioned “We Are the Ones (We’ve Been Waiting For).”
The video was directed by Meyer and longtime collaborator Scott Chernoff, in which they pulled out all the stops for the video. It’s a whacky, trippy video that features video games, drugs, puppets, mayhem, dark comedy, violence, and hallucinatory craziness. Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Mario, Donkey Kong, Laura Croft, Defender, Robotron and others make cameos, as do all five band members.
“Scott Chernoff is a genius comedy writer and BJ Guyer is the best puppet producer in the business, so I knew we were in good hands,” says Meyer. “Our live shows are known for being in-your-face and high-octane, so we wanted this clip to go in a different direction and be light, fun and funny. The song has an ‘80s vibe so we wanted the video to capture that.”
He continues on to further elaborate on the video, “The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs are generally known for our high-octane, high energy live shows. But we can’t tour right now due to COVID restrictions, so music videos have been our creative outlet. But it’s a blessing in disguise because we’ve been able to get really creative with these clips in ways that we might not have before. So since ‘We Are The Ones’ is such a new wavey poppy tune, we decided we could lay into the ‘80s vibe of it. It’s lighter and funnier than we might normally present ourselves, but completely fits the vibe of the song.
I had worked with Scott Chernoff and BJ Guyer before in my days as a Producer at the influential videogame TV network G4TV, so I decided to lean into my own origin story, so to speak. We knew that puppets as videogame characters was a funny concept, and the idea that the band would even be playing a multi-player online version of these old antiquated ‘80s game seemed silly, so we decided to go for it. The video is a cavalcade of crazy classic videogame characters careening into one another, plus just the right amount of weirdness and violence to make it all work. Only in a music video does any of this madness make any sense, but the band is very happy with the results.
Needless to say, the rest of our new album (‘One More Drink’ out March 19th) is much more aggressive and punk rock like fans expect from us. But we always throw some power pop in there too to mix it up. And puppets. Lots of puppets.”
One More Drink — available on vinyl, CD and all digital formats March 12, 2021 — will be supported by more music videos, plus a webcast concert is in the works with an eye on live shows as soon as restrictions are lifted. Pre-order the new record here.
