Six Facts About Hoobastank That You Will Not Believe! #4 made me want to punch a baby!

by
Photo credit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/

Hoobastank is the world’s foremost rock band. Known for 2003’s song of the year “The Reason” and others, Hoobastank has become an international household name. Here are six facts (one for each fantastic album) you may not know about this incredible band!

  1. Hoobastank was influenced by Bulgarian wrestling.

Hoobastank’s original bassist, Markku Lappalainen, was a big fan of Bulgarian wrestling. He was especially a fan of Stanka Zlateva, a 5-time European Champion. In her early days of wrestling, she used to come into the ring yelling “Who’s The Stanka?” to which the crowds would reply “You The Stanka!” That response, in a thick Bulgarian accent, gave Lappalainen the idea for the band name Hoobastank. Incredibly enough, after the critically acclaimed 2003 album The Reason came out, Hoobastank was invited to perform the homonymous song as Zlateva’s entrance music during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens!

  1. Doug Robb is a record-breaking skydiver.

In July 2005, Doug Robb and his brother Bank went on a skydiving trip right outside of San Francisco. They started to get into a fight on the way up into the air, until Bank couldn’t help himself, and yelled “every man for himself,” while pushing Doug off the plane without a parachute. Miraculously, Doug survived, and became the first person to ever skydive without a parachute. This experience became the basis for Hoobastank’s 2006 concept album, Every Man For Himself.

  1. Their Grammy performance caused a riot.

After their new album “Push Pull” came out last year, they were invited to perform at the 2019 Grammys. During the performance of the single “More Beautiful,” Robb started changing the lyrics to some very politically charged remarks, including, “Donald Trump is more beautiful than Shaq,” “climate change would be solved if everyone stayed inside,” “‘Voulez-Vous’ is the superior ABBA song,” and many, many others. The aforementioned ABBA comment caused quite the stir, as the Grammys host Alicia Keys was recently engaged to Björn Ulvaeus, one of the members of ABBA. The crowds started to swarm the stage, and Hoobastank had to be kicked out of the Staples Center.

  1. Hoobastank had a plan to swing onto Broadway.

In early 2008, Hoobastank was contacted by Julie Taymor, known for directing the hit broadway adaptation of The Lion King. She was working on the upcoming musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and believed Hoobastank would be perfect for writing the music. Of course, the band agreed, and wrote some incredible music for the show. Unfortunately, due to creative differences between Taymor and Hoobastank’s drummer Chris Hesse, they were taken off the project, to be replaced by upcoming artists Paul David Hewson and David Howell Evans of the band You Too. Hoobastank included a few of the songs they wrote for the musical, including the hit “Who The Hell Am I?” in their 2009 Fornever.

  1. Their guitarist may have some Nietzschean blood.

Hoobastank’s world famous guitarist Dan Estrin is an outspoken existentialist. In 2016, he appeared on season 8 of TLC’s Who Do You Think You Are? in an attempt to learn more about his background. On Estrin’s episode, he discovered that he is a distant cousin of Friedrich Nietzsche! Unfortunately, he had a heart attack very soon after this discovery and passed away on December 19, 2016.

  1. The current members of Hoobastank are ready to change the world.

In a 2018 interview with Robb and Estrin, Estrin announced that the entire band will begin campaigning for the 2020 presidential election. When asked why, Robb simply replied, “the reason is you,” stood up, and left, and, as of this publication, has yet to be found. Although we currently don’t know much about their stances or their affiliation, what they have said is that their top priority as president is to change the national anthem to ABBA’s “Voulez-Vous.”

(Note: the editors of the Q researched the information Lee Winters presented in this article, and have discovered none of the information to be true. We are currently reaching out to Winters for an explanation.)

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

*