Here Come the Mummies will perform Friday at the Bluebird Nightclub. They form a band of 10 musicians, some of them rumored to be Grammy-winning. Rumored, because their identities are hidden as carefully as their cloth-wrapped bodies and faces during their ?performances.
HCTM’s website names them only by their mummy monikers: Mummy Cass, Eddie Mummy, Java, Spaz, KW Tut, Mummy Rah, The Flu, B.B. Queen, The Pole and Midnight Mummy. They have not released their true names anywhere and none have been identified.
“We are a rock band,” HCTM’s website said under their About Us section. “We dig getting it on, a bevy of beverages, and hummus. There are more of us than usual. We are undead.”
Bluebird Event Marketing Intern Justin Edwards described HCTM’s music as “jazz/funk,” but Java, one of the Mummies, had a more complex answer.
“Our stock answer is ‘Terrifying Funk From Beyond the Grave,’ but the fact is that we are all over the map,” Java said in an email. “We certainly play some funk, but there is also rock, metal, R&B, ska, Latin, disco etc.”
Java added that because HCTM has so many members, their music has varying influences. They play a wide variety of genres because as a group they like a wide variety of genres, he said.
They have also played at Summerfest, the 2012 Super Bowl Village and as an opener for P-Funk and Al Green, according to their website.
The lyrical content of HCTM’s songs is often suggestive, but without the use of profanity, Edwards said.
HCTM released their sixth studio album, “Cryptic,” in 2013 and two free EPs, “A La Mode” and “Pull It Off,” ?in 2014.
Java said that they use their music like advertising, meaning all of their earnings now come from ticket and merchandise sales. According to their website, HCTM has had sell-out crowds all over North America. Java said they owe this success to “dumb luck and coffee.”
“That, and we are persistent undead dudes,” he said.
The Mummies sparked rumors concerning their concealed identities in a 2008 interview with ?TheChattanoogan.com.
The interviewer asked if it would be “correct to assume that some or all of the mummies are contracted to other labels and therefore must conceal their true identity.” The Mummies replied this would be “ok to assume.”
Longtime fans should expect a few new songs, Java said, some of them on the heavier side.
“Whatever we play, it will be delivered with the insane energy we have become known for,” Java said.
