Hollywood Undead

• 1. Introduction

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  Hollywood Undead formed on the 3rd of June 2005, not in a recording studio, not at a label meeting, but on a MySpace page. Three young men from Los Angeles posted a song called "Hollywood" and watched as strangers on the internet responded with enthusiasm. That moment of amateur enthusiasm on a social network became the seed of one of the more unlikely success stories in modern American rock.

  The band's name was not yet Hollywood Undead when that first post went up. They called themselves The Kids. What turned a few friends into a proper band was simple, almost accidental. J-Dog described the process in an interview with Shave magazine: "Whoever was in the room at the time and played an instrument was in the band." That offhand explanation captures something real about who Hollywood Undead are and how they operate.

  They wear masks. They go by aliases like Johnny 3 Tears, Funny Man, Charlie Scene, and J-Dog. They blend rap verses with rock instrumentation in a way critics have struggled to label cleanly. They sold tens of thousands of copies of their debut album in a single week, reached the top five of the Billboard 200 with their second, and kept releasing records for nearly two decades after that first MySpace post. How a band born from a social media experiment navigated label censorship, lineup changes, and shifting genre tides is a story worth hearing in full.

• 2. The MySpace Origin

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  Jorel Decker, Aron Erlichman, and Jeff Phillips posted that first song under the name The Kids to positive reviews online, and the response was immediate enough to make them take the project seriously. They pulled in friends: George Ragan, who went by "The Server" and would later become Johnny 3 Tears; Jordon Terrell, who became Charlie Scene; Dylan Alvarez, who became Funny Man; and Matthew Busek, who became Da Kurlzz. Seven people united less by a shared artistic vision than by proximity and enthusiasm.

  Kerrang! later described the group as a "Myspace band", and Loudwire noted that audiences described as "the scene kids of Myspace" were among the band's earliest and most devoted listeners. Publications would eventually reach for terms like "myspace-core" and "scene-core" to describe both the sound and the cultural moment the band inhabited. Invisible Oranges, in a 2018 article, called their output "scene music".

  Jeff Phillips, who had been there from the start, did not stay long. He left the group because of a conflict with Erlichman. That early fracture would not be the last personnel drama the band would face, but it established a pattern: Hollywood Undead's lineup has always been in some degree of motion beneath the apparent stability of the masks and the aliases.

• 3. Swan Songs and the Censorship Fight

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  Swan Songs took one year to write and record. Finding a label willing to release it without changes took two more. The band signed with Interscope Records in 2005 and then left when the label attempted to censor the album. They eventually found a home at A&M/Octone Records, and Swan Songs arrived on the 2nd of September 2008.

  In its debut week, Swan Songs entered the Billboard 200 at number 22, moving 21,000 copies. That figure was strong enough to prove the MySpace audience was real and willing to buy. A UK release followed on the 18th of May 2009, with two bonus tracks added.

  In April 2009, the band toured with electronic musician Skrillex under the billing "Sonny and the Blood Monkeys". On the 23rd of June 2009, Hollywood Undead released Swan Songs B-Sides through iTunes. The follow-up release, a CD and DVD set called Desperate Measures, arrived on the 10th of November 2009, climbing to number 29 on the Billboard 200, number 10 on the Rock Albums chart, and as high as number 5 on the Hard Rock albums chart. In December 2009, the band won Best Crunk/Rock Rap Artist at the Rock on Request Awards.

• 4. Deuce Departs, Danny Arrives

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  Early in 2010, the band announced that Aron Erlichman, known as Deuce, had left. George Ragan and Matthew Busek later pointed to arguments over writing credits and Deuce's reluctance to tour as the central reasons. Jorel Decker and Jordon Terrell added that Deuce's insistence on bringing a personal assistant on the road had created friction within the group.

  The band turned to Daniel Murillo, lead singer of Lorene Drive and a long-time friend of the group. Murillo had recently advanced past the auditions for season 9 of American Idol. He chose to drop out of the competition and join Hollywood Undead instead.

  The second album, American Tragedy, arrived on the 5th of April 2011, after an initial target date of the 8th of March was pushed back. The album sold 66,915 copies in its debut week and peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Top Hard Rock Albums chart, number 5 in Canada, and number 43 in the United Kingdom. The band headlined the Revolt Tour between the 6th of April and the 27th of May 2011, alongside 10 Years, Drive A, and New Medicine. Later that year, they co-headlined the World War III tour with Asking Alexandria, We Came As Romans, Borgore, and D.R.U.G.S., and then joined Avenged Sevenfold on the Buried Alive tour, with dates running from the 11th of November to the 14th of December.

• 5. Notes from the Underground

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  Work on a third album began in late November 2011, while the band was still on the Buried Alive tour with Avenged Sevenfold. They went straight into the studio when the tour ended. Their stated goal was to recover the rawer sound of Swan Songs, and they had negotiated full creative control from their label.

  Producers Griffin Boice and Danny Lohner returned to work on the album. The band also announced they would update their masks again. ArtistDirect named the upcoming record one of the most anticipated albums of 2012, placing it in company with Linkin Park, Metallica, and Black Sabbath.

  The lead single, "We Are", arrived on the 29th of October 2012. A music video for the track, directed by Slipknot's Shawn "Clown" Crahan, was posted to the band's Vevo account on the 10th of December. Notes from the Underground was released on the 13th of January 2013. It sold over 53,000 copies in its first week, charted at number 2 on the Billboard 200, and reached number 1 on Canada's Top Albums chart, making it the highest-charting album the band had released to that point.

• 6. Sound and Self-Definition

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  Johnny 3 Tears, speaking in a 2011 interview, said he did not consider Hollywood Undead a rap rock band but rather a rock band influenced by hip hop. By 2020, his framing had shifted again: he described the group as an industrial hip hop act, with their sound being "an amalgamation of Nine Inch Nails and the Beastie Boys".

  Funny Man, for his part, cites 1990s hip-hop artists including N.W.A, Wu-Tang Clan, and Snoop Dogg as foundational influences. Johnny 3 Tears lists Tom Petty, John Fogerty, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney as personal touchstones. The band's wider list of acknowledged influences includes Dog Eat Dog, Eminem, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, Downset., Incubus, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot, and Beastie Boys.

  The Guardian wrote that the group represented "an industrial boy band, N-Sync meets Nine Inch Nails." The Brag offered a different shorthand: "Good Charlotte fronted by Insane Clown Posse." Critics noted that their subject matter ran toward murder, suicide, and the apocalypse, filtered through a horrorcore aesthetic and delivered by performers in masks designed after hockey goaltenders. Digital Beat categorized the combination as rock, industrial, rap, and EDM. Loudwire observed that their emergence registered as a revival of rap rock and nu metal, genres that had been commercially dormant before the band appeared. Da Kurlzz parted ways with the group on the 10th of October 2017, described as an amicable departure to pursue his own interests, leaving the lineup at five members.

• 7. New Empire and Hotel Kalifornia

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  New Empire, Vol. 1 arrived on the 14th of February 2020, with guest appearances from Benji Madden of Good Charlotte, Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens, and rapper Killstation. Johnny 3 Tears described the album's ambition in plain terms: "This album is our attempt at reimagining Hollywood Undead, not just a new sound for this release, but a new sound for the band altogether."

  In 2023, the band toured with Papa Roach, Falling in Reverse, and Escape the Fate. In March 2025, Johnny 3 Tears announced that the band would step back from full album releases and focus instead on singles. The band performed at the Sonic Temple festival in Columbus, Ohio in May 2025, and released the single "All My Friends" featuring Jeris Johnson on the 1st of May 2026.