Photo credit: Owen Ela

Carla Harvey of Butcher Babies fame has released the video for “Hell or Hollywood,” a new single from her latest project, The Violent Hour. Harvey’s second single under this new project, “Hell or Hollywood” features Zakk Wylde and was released earlier this month. The track comes a few months after the first release, “Sick Ones” back in April. The video can be found on The Violent Hour’s YouTube channel.

The video features Harvey in, of course, Hollywood – specifically at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in West Hollywood, an establishment close to Harvey and her history in Hollywood. As she enters the eatery, actors portraying popular deceased metal musicians like Lemmy Kilmister and Kurt Cobain can be seen staring at her and later dancing with her towards the song’s climax. At the end of the video, a bartender clad in red hands Harvey a drink. As she goes to down the glass, we see the bartender with red skins and horns, obviously meant to resemble the devil, winking at the singer.

Carla spoke on her history with the Rainbow and the thought process behind the video. “Shooting the ‘Hell or Hollywood’ video at the Rainbow was a full-circle moment for me,” she said. “As a kid growing up in the Midwest, I saw the Rainbow in rock mags and iconic Guns N’ Roses videos…it exuded that gritty, dangerous, rock ’n’ roll lifestyle I craved. When I moved to LA, I practically lived there. I made my first friends at the Rainbow, found my first bandmates there, and got into plenty of trouble. The Rainbow is more than a backdrop; it’s a living, breathing piece of rock history.   This video tells the story of chasing a dream to LA (both the pleasures and the pitfalls) and toys with the question: do you have to sell your soul for rock ’n’ roll? Is this Hell or Hollywood?  The answer reveals itself at the end of the video. It was important for me to have Lemmy (played by Luke Edwards of Killed by Death) in the video as one of my “tempters” because of his iconic presence at the Rainbow. You’ll spot a Janis Joplin too (actress Shannon Corbett) and I had to throw in a little tongue in cheek humor as well with a Kurt Cobain lookalike (Gabe Maska) because let’s be real, if Kurt showed up at the Rainbow, you’d definitely be in hell.”