"We're going to have open sexual intercourse on every street corner of America." With a song intro like that, you have to wonder who's behind it -- and it's Mickey Avalon. Keep listening, and he'll tell you flat out he was "a street walker selling cock for rock." Years have passed, and the prostitution and drugging are just vivid memories of Mickey's past. Today, Mickey's playing shows which he describes as "having sex, but with a thousand people at the same time," producing music with Interscope Records, and promoting his self-titled album abroad.

On stage, Mickey raps about the glamorous Hollywood scene, celebutantes who flash their cash, and the dark drug-absorbed world that hides in the shadows of celebrity spotlights. On "So Rich, So Pretty" he boasts, "I like a girl who eats and brings it up/A sassy little frassy with bulimia/Her best friend's a plastic surgeon/And when her Beemer's in the shop she rolls the Benz."

Mickey may joke about the illusions of life in Los Angeles, but his lyrics come from his experiences as a junkie and kicking his habit. On "Roll The Dice," Mickey reveals a haunting tale of life as an addict on the streets of Hollywood: "She looked at me and cringed/Said that 'you over there, if you've got the syringe, follow me and I'll share/we went back to my room and used my harpoon/Nodding off to on the couch watching cartoons."

Influenced by Too Short, Run DMC, NWA and Slick Rick, Mickey got into hip-hop mostly because of his age. "[Hip-hop] was the music that I rotated to, and the rhythms in my head where just bouncing that way, and that's how it's easy for me to tell a story," Mickey says.

Of his next album, Mickey will be working with the same people -- no big producers trying to make a hit record. "What I do works for whatever reason when those certain ingredients are tossed together," he says. But until that next record drops, we'll just have to enjoy what "Mr. Right" has to offer.

Originally published @ http://www.collegeclub.com/article/view/3601

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