The Bedroom Walls are a Los Angeles-based band buzz worthy enough to have been showcased on KCRW, reviewed in Rolling Stone, and recommended by Maxim magazine. They are currently in the studio with a highly regarded producer working on their second album. And the official band bio for Bedroom Walls frontman Adam Goldman notes that he also scores adult videos under the name Chuck Bronco.
The Bedroom Walls have been around for two-years, starting when a friend saw Goldman perform a solo show and asked to be his drummer, then growing member by member into a sextet that includes guitars, a violin, an electric piano and a glockenspiel, an instrument that is similar to a xylophone.
Their music is a genre-defying sound – atmospheric ambient-pop that the Los Angeles Times once described as "minimalist, mellow, coed drone rock." Goldman is the first to admit that his band isn't mainstream, but feels that there is an audience for his sound. "Obviously, if you're looking for a new metal band or an emo band, we're not your band. But if you want really a kind of desperately sad, pretty songs – we got them."
To make it easier for people to describe their sound, the band coined the term "Romanticore."
"The term romanticore is partly a joke, because it's not 'core' at all," Goldman said. "And the idea of everything being a genre is kinda stupid, too. Obviously."
The Bedroom Walls' first album, I Saw You Coming Back to Me, was self-released in October. The album was funded in part by the money Goldman earned scoring adult videos as Chuck Bronco.
And like the Bedroom Walls, Goldman's alter ego Chuck Bronco writes music that is considered a little...different. "Sometimes I get in trouble with the porn music because I play it first on people, and they say, 'Wow, isn't that a little bit sad for porn?" Goldman said. "I have a tendency – or you might say a gift – for making melancholy music, so I just kinda naturally gravitate towards that."
Chuck Bronco scored Double 0 Blonde, Being with Julia Ashton, Marilyn Chambers' comeback performance Still Insatiable, and New Wave Hookers 6 to name a few.
"Scoring porn movies is not the most lucrative thing, although everyone envies you. If you tell someone you score porn its great cocktail party conversation fodder, because everyone's fascinated," Goldman noted. "Everyone's fascinated by porn, but there's something in particular about porn soundtracks that people find irresistible to talk about."
And while the success of I Saw You Coming Back to Me may have opened up a few doors for Goldman's career as a mainstream musician, his alter-ego Bronco can still be seen popping up on credits on videos.
"I've quit the day job, but it's one of those things where there's money coming in from here and there," Goldman said, although his desire to pick up an AVN Award for Best Music could be another reason he keeps his toes wet in adult.
"I have never won an AVN Award, God damn them!" Goldman said jokingly. "They always lock me out. They don't want Chuck Bronco for some reason. They won't give Chuck Bronco credit.
"It would just have been funny to tell my friends. That would have been the extent of it. 'Hey man, check it out!'"
Goldman began doing porn soundtracks while working in the DVD department of VCA. After graduating from Cal Arts in 1998, Adam Goldman was in need of a job – and VCA had one for him, working mostly on developing DVD menus and interfaces. "It was one of those things where a friend called and says, "Hey, do you know how to use this program, this application, this application?" And I said, 'Absolutely not.' Then Goldman discovered the job paid approximately $17.50 an hour. "I said, 'You know what? I know those programs now. Instantly, I know them.'
"I was part-time and the guy who hired me would have noticed immediately that I didn't know what I was doing had he not been on his way out," Goldman said. "But I had it down pretty fast, it's not like this was brain surgery."
Goldman, who is bisexual, admits to toying with the idea of appearing as talent in gay videos while in grad school. "Truth is, I did audition once when I was still in grad school. I was at my girlfriend's house, and the weekly was open, and it was open to the job section, and I started looking at the ads," Goldman said. "And it was like, hey, you know, make money in your free time."
"I was like, huh! Well, I'm going to go check that out. So I called the guy, and I made an appointment, and I went over there, and you know, it was like gay porn/escort service.
"And the guy gave me the low down. And it was very businesslike. And he's like, 'Alright. That's the story.' Told me what I would have to do. So, yeah, I basically had to get undressed. Although he's like, to really do a good audition, he wanted to have sex.
"And I said, 'That's not gonna happen.' And plus the pay was terrible, man! Basically, I was gonna have to pop four times in one movie for $500. What's that? $125 a pop? That's not very good
Designing DVD menus for porn and occasionally scoring a porn as well payed much better. "Let's just say that it funded the making of the first record, which is pretty good, actually."
The money spent on self-releasing was well worth their efforts. "Do the Buildings & Cops Make You Smile?," a single from their debut album, received airplay on KCRW then spread across college radio nationwide, receiving plugs in national magazines such as Maxim and on National Public Radio along the way.
This month, Goldman and Bedroom Walls will head into the studio to make their second album with Joe Chiccarelli, a veteran engineer/mixer/ producer who began his career as Frank Zappa's engineer and has produced bands such as American Music Club and Oingo Boingo.
"We're talking to labels, like everybody else. People come out to shows... it's always weird when A&R guys come out from these gigantic labels, and there's no way they're ever gonna sign us. We would never sell enough records to keep a major label happy.
"But as far as decent indies, yeah. It'll probably come out on a more kinda international indie, or national."
Until the sophomore album from Bedroom Walls hits, at least, Goldman will still be freelancing as Chuck Bronco.
For more info on Bedroom Walls, or to contact Chuck Bronco, check out
