Did Kurt Ballou Start The Armed?

Buried towards the end of this highly informative and entertaining piece of investigative journalism on the origins of the mysterious Detroit-based metal collective The Armed, (written by MS contributor Snaximus) was the following paragraph taken from an email sent by Kurt Ballou, who has recorded all three of The Armed’s full length albums:

“When I started the band I was thinking a lot about how the division between a band (or any known entity for that matter) and its audience has changed in the era of social media. The direct access can build close relationships within a community, but it can also create disproportionate senses of entitlement. My idea in creating this project was to disrupt that culture by forcing people to focus only on the content, not the creators, hoping it would usher in an era in creative culture where the work is more important than the workers.”

As Snaximus himself noted, does anything after “When I started the band…” even matter? Kurt could be a full-time member, he could be a part-time member — it seems The Armed have several of those — and he could retain the role of founder and creative director while not playing a single note either on the record or live. He could be the latter-career Pete Rose or Joe Torre of hardcore, calling the shots and participating in the fun. Who knows?

Quite frankly I had no idea The Armed were such a mysterious outfit before reading this piece — I sure dug their music, though — but now I’m a full-on believer in all the pseudo-conspiracy theories surrounding them, Andrew W.K. style. Speaking of Mr. Wilkes-Krier, some folks even have The Armed pegged as his secret art project, a theory which has at the very least geographic proximity going for it. Next thing you know there’ll be rumors that Kanye is behind all this — don’t rule it out.

Read the entire article here. Highly recommend!