It’s almost as if Mike Vallely took the label “extreme” from “extreme sports” as a challenge.

When he stormed the stage for his second set of the day at the Ventura stop of The Warped Tour he was already bleeding from several wounds and looked furious. His hulking visage bounded up the steps to the stage as his new bad Revolution Mother (replacing his old gig, Mike V and the Rats) began to blast into their first song of a hardcore half-hour set.

Vallely, who goes by the shortened moniker “Mike V.” first rose to prominence in the skateboarding world when a photo of him skating amateur ended up on the cover of Thrasher magazine.

V.’s big break was the stuff of Hollywood movies. 16 and doing hand plants outside a vert competition one minute and sponsored and on the cover of magazines the next, V. has long been a poster-boy for skaterboarder dreams. It only makes sense that he would move onto become a renaissance man for generation X.

His gimmick, his strength and his best chance to gain foothold in the music world with his second band (his first reached its’ highest echelon playing second stage at 2004’s Projekt Revolution Tour) rests on the Warped Tour.

Revolution Mother plays 2 sets every day of the tour and because too much is never enough for V., he does two skateboarding exhibitions too. Many of the young fans drawn in by V.’s impressive skill on a board stayed around to hear his band. Those paying attention, instead of just watching the surface filth than fury were richly rewarded.

The band, playing on a small stage with a Hot Rod poster dominating the background, smashed headlong into their set with a vigor and intensity that most of the main stage acts could only dream of. V. gripped his mic so tightly that it looked like the entire apparatus might explode in his hands as he sang and screamed his lyrics with a budged veins force that forced his eye shut, often for entire songs at a time. 

Revolution Mother’s sound is somewhere between Henry Rollins and Helmet, though he plays faster than the former and seems smarter than the latter. Basically, the music powers forward like freight train off the rails.

As the show progressed, V. took to holding the mic stand between his legs, thrusting with it like it was a giant dildo. Were the band any less dedicated to their own over-the-top nature, the gesture would have seemed out of place, a Axl Rose or Rammenstein moment in an indie hard rock setting. But as V. swung his hair back and forth like the rock god he imagines himself to be, the audience couldn’t help but buy in.

Underneath all the muscles however, V. is a very charismatic front man. He knows where his core audience is and is comfortable playing to his strengths, dedicating several songs to his fans and skateboarders everywhere.

The twin tattoos of “fear” and “love” on each hand come off as not the least bit crass when taken en tandem with his personal philosophy of self actualization and non-conformity that V. explained in the break down of “The Real Deal.”

“They tell you to ‘keep it real’ Real what? I think they mean, real low, real mediocre.” V. bellowed with a Manson like intensity in his eyes. “Fuck keeping it real! You gotta, make it real!” In the live rendition of the song, which V. uses as a mission statement of sorts, V. explains that when he first went out and wanted to be a professional skateboarder, no one supported him. Instead, “They came with knives a blazing and stabbed me in the fucking back!”

Almost every sentence V. uttered could easily end in an exclamation point. V. is extreme in every way. Too, he is his own biggest fan, but the bravado serves him well. As does the self aware irony of the band’s fashion. Instead of lip-gloss and eyeliner like some of his tour mates, V’s band looks almost like roadies. (And according to the bands blog, they are, in fact, their own roadies). Bassist Colin Buis sported a well worn in Dr. Dre shirt and an army helmet while V. worn torn jeans and blood stains. This type of visual incongruity goes a long way towards improving on some real ‘no duh’ lyrics like “Darkness is the absence of light!” 

Still, the hooks are strong and the rhythms are tight. The effect can only be accurately described as, extreme.

Mike V. will be playing the rest of the warped tour with 2 daily shows and 2 daily skateboarding exhibitions. Revolution Mother’s album, Glory Bound is out now.