Macaulay Culkin is in a band that does Velvet Underground covers about pizza

By Sean O'Neal | December 6, 2013 | 11:42pm

Aux Features Music

After years of being dogged by rumors of heroin addiction, Macaulay Culkin has fought back by forming a band in which he plays the druggy doper anthems of The Velvet Underground—now cleaned up and reimagined as songs about pizza, a less deadly, far tastier habit. Dubbed The Pizza Underground, the group makes use of Culkin’s dual loves of performing other people’s music and just dicking around doing whatever he wants, because he has shitloads of Home Alone money. According to The Pizza Underground Bandcamp page, Culkin contributes vocals, kazoo, and “percussion,” performed in stripped-down, Moe Tucker-style on empty pizza boxes.

The Pizza Underground has only played a single show in New York—no doubt to the sort of East Village crowd who’d thrill to the twee charms of a band doing pizza-themed Velvets songs—and self-recorded (at Culkin’s house) the eight-minute demo below, a medley of songs like “Papa John Says,” “I’m Beginning To Eat The Slice,” and “Cheese Days.” (THAT LAST ONE IS TECHNICALLY A NICO SONG AND EVEN MORE TECHNICALLY A JACKSON BROWNE SONG, MACAULAY CULKIN. EXERCISE MORE QUALITY CONTROL OVER YOUR LITTLE PIZZA PARODIES, PLEASE). Though of course, it seems inevitable there’s more to come. Like we said, Macaulay Culkin’s got nothing but time.