Who's That Freddie Mercury-Looking Guy Singing on the New Macklemore Song?
This week, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis unleashed their astonishingly amazing new video for “Downtown,” starring a fleet of moped riders, Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, and Ken Griffey Jr. with a fish. On Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, they recreated the video, and now some fans might be wondering… who’s that totally awesome dude with the Freddie Mercury voice and Fauntleroy-fringed mullet?
We’re talking about the guy who comes in around the 1:45 mark in the video below – on a chariot, yet – and pretty much steals the show.
The man is Eric Nally, frontman for the 12-legged Cincinnati rock ‘n’ roll machine known as Foxy Shazam, a cult band known for its gut-, ball-, and genre-busting live shows. Chachi/Leif Garrett-styled Camaro-rocker Nally has always been quite the showman, bursting at the leather-pants-seams with over-the-top theatricality and cheek-tongued rawk ridiculousness, while wailing in a voice that’s equal parts Allison Moyet, Pee Wee Herman, Meat Loaf, and the Little Caesar’s pizza-guy cartoon.
And now Nally is getting a whole new huge platform for his unique talents, thanks to Macklemore.
Below is a typically amusing flashback interview with Nally after he and his bandmates absolutely obliterated the stage at a SPIN party at South By Southwest five years ago. Also playing the SPIN soiree that day was Hot Leg, a side band fronted by the Darkness’s Justin Hawkins. Hawkins went on to produce Foxy’s fourth album, The Church of Rock and Roll, and Nally and Hawkins wrote songs together for Meat Loaf’s 2010 comeback effort, Hang Cool, Teddy Bear.
Much to fans’ dismay, Foxy Shazam announced in October last year that they were taking an indefinite hiatus. So it’s great to see Nally back in action on “Downtown.” Let’s hope this is the first of many thrilling Nally cameos to come.
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