Badlands Takes Unpaved Route
On Road To Fame

Following the barroom death of his father and an ensuing insurance settlement, Randy Badlands’ family promptly moved to Reno, Nevada, where his mother took a job as a croupier in a local casino. It was there that Randy began to sneak into clubs as a teen, watching various musical performers such as Box Car Willie and noted local singer, James “Dynamite” Freedom.

Although admittedly influenced by these legends, Badlands secretly despised the performers because, as he put it, “they sucked harder than a hooker trying to get peanut butter through a drinking straw.”

Randy briefly tried his own hand as a Reno lounge singer, but moved on to a job in promotion after he placed second to last in a local talent search, finishing behind a singing troupe of trained alley cats, one of which was later found skinned in a dumpster.

Badlands left Reno in 1987 and moved to Los Angeles. But despite only having a beat up pickup truck and forty bucks to his name at the time, it didn’t take him long to make a name for himself Hollywood.

In between numerous run-ins with the law, Randy’s unique look quickly earned him bit roles in hit TV shows such as Simon & Simon, and Remington Steele. He also appeared in a Stove Top Stuffing ad, which ended in an ugly lawsuit for him when he revealed on a daytime talk show that he didn’t truly believe that stuffing actually had anything over potatoes.

The lawsuit was settled out of court, although details on whether Badlands paid off the penalty is still unclear. What was clear though was that Randy surfaced in South Africa a month later.

While in Cape Town, Badlands began hanging around with some outlaw filmmakers, and subsequently was given a part that would launch his career.

“Drew Bloode 2: The Revenge of Randy Badlands” also launched the careers of Mark Gamble, Jason Baseden and Mark Crandall, all of whom have since become underground icons. Said Randy about the film, “Those idiots didn’t look like they had a clue. But I figured I’d just lend my name to the damn thing and see if it might get some legs.”

The success of the small independent project led to a prequel of the film; “Drew Bloode Episode One: The Conquerors Glove”. Bigger in scope, this New York/Jersey City-based picture put the Drew Bloode phenomenon in the limelight, and propelled its stars into an even higher stratosphere. Said Jason Baseden (Dimitrius Thunder), “After the movie, I moved to Paris to escape the American media blitz, but I still get recognized and hassled all over Europe.”

Following the triumph of the Drew Bloode films, Badlands took his newfound success and returned to his first love: music. Using the cache of money he made from the films, he started his own recording and mixing studio, where he began putting out compilations under his own label, Badlands Records.

Today, Randy enjoys the success he has found as a producer. He continues putting out his albums, and to date he has compiled more than three dozen records.

“Lots a folks take me for some big hick who only shuffles to country,” he was recently quoted as saying in Time. “But the truth is that most of that music ain’t worth a squirt of my lemonade. So I ain’t hasslin’ with none of that nonsense. I’m gonna get down with whatever I get down with. End of story.”