For the record, the five members of Ugly Kid Joe aren`t all that unattractive.
And even though the title of their upcoming album is ”America`s Least Wanted,” lots of people do want them.
Earlier this year, the northern California hard rock group sold a million copies of its six-song EP, ”As Ugly as They Wanna Be,” despite an unfriendly cover-a bratty, bandaged imp flipping buyers the bird-and a hit song that catalogs how the band hates ”Everything About You.”
It was a good selling tool, this ”Wayne`s World” irreverence. It even earned the group infamy when Disney chairman Michael Eisner-after hearing the Disneyland terrorist tune ”Madman”-axed a UKJ song from the ”Encino Man”
film soundtrack.
But the truth is that Ugly Kid Joe has more to offer than pranks and bad attitude.
”Being in the band, for all of us, is a pretty good place,” says singer William Whitfield Crane IV. ”We`ve all got good heads on our shoulders that weren`t going toward society`s typical norm. Everyone in the group had that common denominator of looking for that something we wanted to do, and I think we found it within this band.”
Crane and childhood friend Klaus Eichstadt, UKJ`s guitarist, put the group together after the two migrated north from their native Santa Barbara to Isla Vista, a college town where gigs were more plentiful. After playing under several names of varying taste, they settled on Ugly Kid Joe after they were offered a chance to open for Los Angeles` Pretty Boy Floyd.
”Ugly Kid Joe,” says Crane, 24, ”seemed to complement the bill.”
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The name stuck. But the big break came when entertainment attorney Dennis Rider, now UKJ`s manager, heard the group and sent a tape to a friend at Mercury Records.
”America`s Least Wanted” is due out Sept. 8.