Distortion, dancing, destruction. Energy, brain, guitars. Party on the grave of the 80s. Charismatic bass-baritone.
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Prostitutes!
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
The band is formed in Prague by a strike of luck in the fall of 2004. The former sailor Adrian Bell joins the other four a toxicologist, a sociologist, a graphic and a director as a singer, when, after hearing his voice recordings, they cannot resist their bewilderment: Wow, he sounds like Johnny Cash!
The name comes to them without thinking; they all know they want to give people a good ride, regardless of the nature and nationality of the customer – and thus, The Prostitutes are born: Martin Destroyer on the guitar, Luke Santiago behind the drums, Stevie LFO on the keyboard and Adrian Bell with his voice and microphone. Šmity completes the formation as a guest after replacing Mark Jukebox on the bass in 2007.
“My Brain? It’s my second favorite organ.”
Woody Allen in Sleeper
Soon in spring 2005 they record their first EP with 4 tracks and put it up on Myspace, Bandzone and other networking sites for sharing. On bandzone.cz, a leading Czech music sharing site, they become the most visited band after a few weeks, a position to be held more then one year until the closing of the chart. Before they had to play their first gig, NMM entitled them the best Czech band. First gigs evoke excited reactions both in music press and on the Internet (the third show got 8/10 in the Filter magazine, comparing the energy of The Prostitutes to that of the first concerts of Sex Pistols and Joy Division, probably under influence of the movie 24 Hour Party People).
The Prostitutes naturally form a platform of supporters from the very beginning, be it graphics, animators, movie-makers or web designers, who are willing to help promote the success of the band. Jan Trnka, the father of Bumbaris Paris project, is a designer of the band web and logo. Leading cartoon movie-makers and VJs from Mimo TV became authors of the first band successful video for She’s a Monster which spent 7 weeks in music TV Óčko chart. Martin Destroyer created a director’s duo MODS with Michal Nohejl and together with producer Petra Ondřejková from Bistro Films they did the award-winning video for the song Sunshine, which get respect also internationally.
But when the band was phoned up to come for its very first appearance on Óčko TV few months before, they had nothing to show. So they produced two music videos for Look Into My Eyes and She’s a Monster (later replaced by above mentioned professional video). Martin Destroyer and Adrian Bell are authors of many posters, most of them being posted up in the city on dark nights after rehearsals (these are now collectable items amongst the fans).
The Prostitutes believe in viral marketing and WOM and therefore more then a half of their debut album can be downloaded from numerous Internet sites. for their exceptional visual impact). The Prostitutes simply give it all.
Offical site:
Main social networking sites:
http://www.myspace.com/theprostitutes
http://www.bandzone.cz/theprostitutes
Last.fm:
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Prostitutes
iLike:
http://www.ilike.com/artist/The+Prostitutes
YouTube (with most of the videos):
http://www.youtube.com/user/martinprikryl
http://www.youtube.com/user/Prostitutes
“At my signal, unleash hell.”
Russell Crowe in Gladiator
The success rate of The Prostitutes is unprecedented. They are praised by most of the music press, their fan base grows steadily. These are some of their achievements:
2008
Sunshine was selected as the Czech song of the decade by webzine ALL ABOUT MUSIC
Leading news server iDnes labeled the video Dad Sings The Prostitutes as Video Act of the Year
Martin Destroyer ranked 61th on the chart of most influential Czech music personalities of last 500 years, according to Filter magazine
2007
48th place among All Time Best Czech Albums by Filter magazine
Songs Sunshine, Eject and Don’t Give a Damn appears in numerous annual charts and reviews in Czech and International blogosphere, always in Top 10
2006
Band of the Year – Filter magazine
Song of the Year (Sunshine) – Filter magazine (readers’ choice)
Best Video of the Year (Sunshine) – RGM Óčko Awards
3rd place in category Best New Act – Žebřík Awards
Nominee for Best Rock Band – RGM Óčko Awards
Nominee for Best New Act – RGM Óčko Awards
Nominee for Best New Act – Anděl Awards
2005
2nd in the readers chart of NMM (beating Bloc Party, Editors a Hard-Fi) – Newcomer of the Year
4th in the editors chart of New Music Magazine (beating) – Newcomer of the Year
3rd in the readers chart of the Filter magazine Discovery of the Year
3rd in the Óčko Music TV awards for the Newcomer of the Year
Sunshine is nominated to the Track of the Year in the Music Awards of the Czech Internet.
On Myspace, they already reached more then 150.000 plays and tens of thousands downloads from Australia to Arizona. The Prostitutes became not only one of the most important Czech alternative bands, but they reach success also on international field.
“Let’s get outta here!”
Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz
In September 2006, the long awaited and from the main part self-produced album Get Me Out of Here is released. The music press goes very emotional, using outcries such as Album of the Year!, The Czechs needed a band like this!, Riot for Intellectuals. They classify it most often with marks 9/10 and 5/5.
A week on, the single track Sunshine reaches the top of the Radio Wave chart and holds the position for 6 weeks, going straight to the hall of fame.
Also other tracks from the album can be heard on numerous Czech and abroad radio stations (Don’t Give a Damn, Eject, Blue Friday, She’s Dead). The video for Sunshine was broadcasted by MTV Spain as one of results of a successful Spanish tour in November 2006. A part of the Barcelona gig was aired by Spanish National TV, the band gave an interview for Spanish Public Radio. Material recorded in Spain was transformed into a video for Get Me Out Of Here.
In the Czech Republic, the public could get know The Prostitutes through live appearance in numerous TV programmes, such as Ladí Neladí, Dobré ráno or Události v kultuře.
In 2007, the band played around 60 gigs and became a concert sensation. The public proclamation of fictitious Summer of Love started a long line of gigs including all major summer festivals and autumn Distortion-Dancing-Destruction Tour which was prolonged until Spring 2008. The D-D-D Tour was preceded by the release of second single record, Don’t Give a Damn. Its success approved the strong position of the band.
The year 2007 was ended by a release of the a capella version of Get Me Out Of Here, a burlesque to Christmas carol.
“I will come back and the law will come with me!”
Karel Fiala in Limonádový Joe
In the first three years The Prostitutes experienced a rocket start onto the top of Czech alternative music scene. 2008 is a year of preparations for another start, much more challenging and ambitious then the first one.
At present, the band is working hard on the awaited second album. It started to grow in the home studios of band members, in top studio Moskva of Barrandow Hill and in the studio of Dušan Neuwerth (Tata Bojs, Priessnitz, Vypsaná Fixa, Aneta Langerová, Kryštof, Ecstasy Of St. Theresa and others), who undertook the production of the whole record.
The band reduced concert activities in terms of quantity, but open new and important areas at the same time. Beside main Czech summer festivals, they will play also in Slovakia (Pohoda, Minikvas), Austria (Freak Out Festival) or Germany (Berlin Insane, Wild at Heart).
This season, The Prostitutes were already much appreciated on the series of spring festivals Majales and mainly on Rock for People, where they became a sensation due to a common performance with Philippine-American Abe Cruz, know from the video for Don’t Give a Damn. The video itself was first run in the Czech TV, presented live by Abe Cruz and his daughter Anne-Marie Cruz, who shot the video with her father in the streets of New York. The story of the video creation had large media coverage. And this is also the leave-taking with the first album.
The song Don’t Give A Damn was also selected from thousand of tracks to take place on the 2008 Europavox compilation, a set of CDs distributed among 3000 professionals from music business.
All happenings concerning the band are intensively covered by our up-to-date blog http://blog.theprostitutes.org.
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!”
Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind
Each of the press reviews, be it a CD or a gig, is known to set off a fervid love-and-hate discussion on anything from the age and occupation of the band members, to their musical instruments and invention – amongst the bands fans and the bands adversaries, turning The Prostitutes into a true social phenomena.
