This Hardcore Punk Anthem About Heroin and Murder Ended Up Selling Shampoo

Song: “Diamonds and Guns” by Transplants

Woo woo!

If you stood anywhere remotely close to a television in the early 2000s, you’ve heard this song before. Paired with slick video footage of sparkling citrus fruits and dewy, fresh-faced teenagers playfully splashing in beach showers, this infectious piano loop was the backbone of a massive marketing push by French cosmetics giant L’Oreal to capture the American young-adult hair care market with its Garnier Fructis line. This wasn’t a shoddy DIY spot for a local car dealership that aired once a day at noon on PBS; these commercials ran nonstop on every major channel that offered youth programming, ranging from after-school cartoons at three to prime-time teen dramas at nine. (Which makes sense when you consider that the annual operating revenue at L’Oreal is larger than the GDP of most African countries.) It also makes this song’s presence in a global tween-oriented advertising campaign even more unlikely. I’m sure a few punks sat up and woozily thought, “How many tabs of acid did I drop last night?” Because here’s the original NSFW version.

Also featured in commercials for Neutrogena.

“Diamonds and Guns” was a 2002 single by SoCal punk/hip-hop supergroup Transplants, who mostly sang about the drugs, crime, and violence of L.A.’s mean streets. The band’s signature style was initially conceived in 1999 by seasoned punk veteran and lead singer Tim Armstrong (of Rancid and Operation Ivy fame) as a collaboration with his longtime friend Rob “Skinhead Rob” Aston, a roadie turned rapper. A few years later they roped in Blink-182’s Travis Barker, arguably one of the hottest rock drummers on the planet, and started inviting buddies to record with them at the studio: Matt Freeman of Operation Ivy and Rancid, Lars Frederiksen of Rancid, Davey Havok of AFI, and Brody Dalle of the Distillers. (Dalle was far less prominent than her then-husband Armstrong until she released one of the best albums of the decade, 2003’s critically acclaimed Coral Fang.) Pretty nice when your circle of loved ones turns into an all-star lineup, eh?

The group’s last iteration in 2013, performing at the House of Blues. Fantastic photo by Julie Bergonz capturing what looks like one hell of a show!

Rancid, AFI, Blink-182, and the Distillers may have been on the hook-heavy side of punk, but they certainly didn’t spare any punches. A few sample lyrics from this gem:

“Bombs going off in Sierra Leone. . .”

“And who’s the fuckin’ bitch who stole all the heroin?
Heroin, heroin, it’s all gone
Smoked it all up, and now you got none. . .”

“I shot in heaven, now I cry
No one lives forever, in fact we all die
From those who bust shots to those who stuff cops
To those who serve rocks on all the hard blocks. . .”

“Gat to your face with the fuckin’ bullets stickin’ out
Missin’ out, diss and bout, blood’s what you’re pissin’ out. . .”

And that’s only before the part with pimpin’ and six-packs!

Millions of tubes of glossy gel were sold by a band with very little hair.

My question isn’t why “Diamonds and Guns” was used in commercials. It’s an absolute banger of a song- a rollicking, ominous, colorful tour of the city’s midnight underworld. The strength of this piece lies in the juxtaposition of Armstrong’s menacing growl against the hyper-aggressive bars of rappers Aston and guest Jason “Son Doobie” Vasquez, anchored by the rock-solid intuition of Barker on drums, and wrapped up in a bow with a catchy piano loop from whiz songwriter and producer Dave Carlock. Over 20 years later, it still sounds as energetic, thrilling, and world-weary as when it was first released.

My question is how an advertising agency found this in the first place and decided it would be a great match for young adult skin and hair care. Sure, Armstrong was no stranger to mainstream success from his work with Rancid, and Blink-182 had released two worldwide blockbuster albums. On merit alone, “Diamonds and Guns” briefly scraped the middle of the alternative charts with a Billboard peak of #19. But Transplants’ eponymous debut was released through Hellcat, a gritty independent punk label spun off from the larger Epitaph Records (founded by Bad Religion’s Brett Gurewitz) and helmed by Gurewitz and Armstrong; its roster swayed towards lesser-known hardcore acts like Choking Victim, Leftover Crack, and the Distillers. While Gurewitz could certainly leverage Epitaph’s resources, neither organization had the vast tentacles of distribution and outreach common to majors such as Sony or Warner.

Admittedly I’m a fangirl for pretty much everything they ever put out, but it sometimes involved long hours browsing through secondhand media in the basement of Falls Church, VA’s CD Cellar.

Which demonstrates the value of advertising agencies hiring not just straitlaced MBAs but actual creatives. Yes, I know they can be weird and whimsical and spend a lot of their free time hunting for rare records at anarchist cat cafes, but clearly one of these people recognized the inherent genius behind an experimental side project on a tiny obscure label. And bless them for breaking this song to a whole new audience.

Woo woo!

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