ELECTRIC CALLBOY
HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?
Before lockdown, Electric Callboy were plugging away in youth centres. Now they’re headlining arenas. We flew to their native Germany to ask…
WORDS: DANNII LEIVERS
PICTURES: WILL IRELAND
Under neon pink and green lights, 8,000 fans are going berserk inside Oberhausen’s cavernous Rudolf Weber-Arena. As streamers blast into the rafters and fountains of pyro burst upwards, a hardstyle beat spurs the kind of mass rave you’d expect from fellow German club veterans Scooter. Moments later, Electric Callboy, the band orchestrating the carnage, dressed in furry white gilets and bowl cut wigs, tear into a breakdown meatier than Till Lindemann’s left thigh, and the mayhem kicks up a notch, with seething pits sucking up bodies like a black hole.
Chaos like this has been commonplace in Electric Callboy’s world ever since they released their adrenalinecharged anthem, Hypa Hypa, in 2020. A perfect blend of EDM anthemia and brutal metalcore, it had an immediate impact, but it was the song’s ridiculous mullet-shaking, crotch-thrusting, moustache-stroking video that turned them into viral sensations, clocking up 26 million views and counting on YouTube – and since then, it’s been a rollercoaster.
Hilarious music videos for singles We Got The Moves (concept: pigeon-neck bopping and bush trimming) and Pump It (tight lycra and getting swole) followed, the band pitching the latter as Germany’s Eurovision 2022 entry, although it was turned down – adecision that presumably haunts the German judges to this day, given their lacklustre final entry ended up with nil points.