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CKY
Camp Kill Yourself saves the world
by Jonathan Williams
Photos by Frank Mullen
From the December 2003 issue of Prick Magazine.
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 Deron Miller, Chad Ginsberg, Vern Zabrowski and Jesse Margera. |
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You might expect a group of guys who enjoy such reckless behavior as jumping off speeding cars, riding shopping carts into bushes and sprinting down the street in just a jock strap after having eaten way too many laxatives (that's probably all the details you want to hear) to be just the type of guys to go under the needle for some tattoos or body piercings. However, the members of CKY seem to be too busy abusing themselves in other ways to pay a visit to the local tattoo parlor.
What started out as a series of skater/gross-out/stupid stunt videos that would serve as a precursor to Jackass, CKY eventually evolved into a musical project mostly out of a need for music to be used in the videos.
Don't let the band's antics on film fool you; CKY's music is a heady conglomeration of Deron Miller's fuzzed-out space guitars and philosophically challenging lyrics, Chad Ginsburg's progressive, Moog-enhanced production values and backing guitars, Jess Margera's syncopated drums, and Vern Zaborowski's live bass additions. And as the title of last year's Infiltrate·Destroy·Rebuild implies, CKY is determined to topple the music industry from within, setting a new standard for mainstream music.
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 Deron Miller and Chad Ginsberg. |
 Chad Ginsberg and his friend Jack. |
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"That's what we're trying to do," says Zaborowski, who sports the band's only tattoo. "Isn't that what everybody's trying to do, because it sucks right now. It's not really the bands' faults; it's pretty much the industry. The bands are just trying to make money and do this stuff for a living. They don't know what they're saying. They think it means so much to them, but it's just a bunch of shit."
To help with this mission, CKY has developed a large and strong group of fans/allies (the CKY Alliance) without mainstream radio or MTV airplay.
"CKY means fucking everything to some people," Zaborowski continues. "It means a fucking lifestyle. We talk to some of these kids and it's not just music. We believe there's change possible. We can do anything we want to. A lot of kids are becoming a whole lot smarter [because of CKY]. Shit, I've become [much] smarter since I joined the band, as a musician and a person. We learn a lot from these kids and they learn a lot from us."
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The band has such a devoted following that many members of the Alliance get CKY tattoos to permanently support the CKY cause.
"There's tons of people that have CKY tattoos," Zaborowski points out. "There were these girls, and [Deron] drew on the back of them an upside down cross with a CKY on the bottom. The next time the girls came back they had these big fucking upside down crosses with CKY tattooed. He drew on them and they just kind made a design over it!"
The name CKY - which stands for Camp Kill Yourself - was inspired by a horror movie called Sleepaway Camp, in which, according to Zaborowski, people are "getting murdered and you find out it was this girl, but it's not a girl, it's a dude." Like the movie's killer, CKY is more than it appears to be on the surface. In addition to continuing to put out home videos and touring extensively both as a club headliner and as support for the likes of the Deftones and Guns N' Roses, the band is also finding other ways to spread it's message and creativity.
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 Vern Zambrowski shows his bass skills. |
 Vern's Fat Albert Tattoo. |
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"[Camp Kill Yourself] is a great name for a horror movie," Zaborowski opines. "Deron made it up and eventually it will be a horror movie. Deron's working on movies right now. He's not going to stop with this CKY stuff. We're very multifaceted, we don't just want to do music."
"We want to actually start a CKY camp for kids where they can go and learn how to fucking play guitar and learn how to do Web design or some shit," he continues.
But who would send their kids to Camp Kill Yourself?
"If we called it Camp Alliance or something like that it might work better," Zaborowski concludes.
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CKY's Infiltrate·Destroy·Rebuild - The Video Album DVD is in stores now, featuring videos for all the songs on Infiltrate·Destroy·Rebuild directed by Bam Margera.
For more information on CKY and to see pictures of CKY tattoos, go to www.ckymusic.com, www.cky-online.com, www.ckyalliance.com, or www.islandrecords.com.
For more Frank Mullen photography, visit www.matteblack.com.
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