Features : GREENE’s “US of A” gives America the metal/punk/electronic hell it wants and deserves

GREENE wants everyone to know that he loves America, but the love is tough, and his new song, “US of A,” dropping on July 4, delivers that love in his personal mix of “industrial techno/metal, electronic dance music, nu-metal, and electronic punk.”

Hard driving, pounding, righteous industrial techno/metal, electronic dance, nu-metal and electronic punk, rife with pounding drums and grinding guitars.

“I actually wrote this song before I went into my service for the United States federal government,” said GREENE.

The song begins:

I live in a country of greed I’ve seen what there is to see
To bleed all I can bleed
I’m robbed of my agency
My faith in humanity
My faith in this country
Smashed through bills and hate

“After my service with them finished, and really getting a sense for just how this country actually works, I then rewrote the lyrics.”

He throws in history, issues, institutions and opinions to illustrate the verses—Afghanistan, immigration, media, two-faced, total waste, and more, spiced with a little vulgarity and obscenity.

“I wrote what I wrote because I, frankly, actually do love this country a lot, and I’m not a big political guy, but when I am, I’m extremely neutral, to the point that I think everyone’s a dumbass.”

There you have it, a world view so unsentimental and hard-jawed it chews up the word “cynical” and spits it in your eye, a philosophical world view rendered in music that jackhammers lyrical points home like rivets in steel.

“Yeah, so very electronic punkish, you know?” he said. “Like with the rolling snare hit, right? Basically, that’s very punkish because punk is very much rebelling against the system. This doesn’t go full into punk. It’s very electronic, industrial metal, as I’ve described the album, but mainly the song comes from is that the tone of the song and the instrumentation and the pacing is the form of what we’re rebelling against.”

So, yes, all this rebellion, this railing against the system, this curtain of disgust and contempt for all the corruption and frivolity of American life—all of that is in this song, but it’s great listening, enjoyable listening.

Wait. Are we supposed to enjoy it?

“My philosophy is music, man, whether it’s rap, hip-hop, reggae, if your head’s bobbing, or you’re dancing, or—in my case—if you’re head banging or moshing, the music has done it’s job.”

GREENE sees himself as a kind of punk/metal/electronic prophet. He illustrates the impetus for the song with the alligator-under-the-bed meme. If there’s an elephant in the room, everybody knows the elephant is in the room. It can’t hide. But an alligator under the bed is different.

“Not everyone in the room knows it’s there. But the people who know, know that it’s kind of a big issue. So that’s what this song talks about, the alligators under the bed, the boogeymen that we should be concerned about.”

Or maybe not a prophet. Maybe he’s this dude called Mathias Greene, who, once upon a time, was the alligator under the bed, working for the U.S. government. And he was such an alligator that Mathias Greene is not his real name, which, for the protection of himself and anyone associated with him, he is not going to reveal.

From here on, he is going to be putting out as singles all the songs that will be on the album he plans to release next January, Le Crémé De Le Meme. That album and its tracks are about Mathias Greene.

“That’s what GREENE”—the artist name for Mathias Greene, whoever he is—“is all about,” he said.

“It’s about me, being once the alligator under the bed, the guy that, when he would walk in to serve a warrant or inspect something, people would say, ‘Ah, shit! This guy.’”

The album is going to be “an examination of Matthias Greene as a character,” where he’s been, what he’s done, “his examination of his life and the world around him from his perspective.”

“It’s a personality that I’ve always wanted to examine, and I thought—I know—the best way to examine this guy is through my music.”

The bottom line? Buy into Mathias Greene, the mysterious, dangerous stranger, or Mathias Greene, a character.

Or not.

Buy into the alligator under the bed. Or not. Buy into GREENE the prophet or GREENE the world-weary cynic.

Or not.

Or, hell. Maybe just come along for the music. It’s worth the trip.

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