The indie band Luxury from Georgia gained some mild regional attention in the mid-1990s for mixing the ferocity of punk with the Smiths-like melodicism of its lead singer. What might be most notable about the group now is that three of its five members have since become robe-wearing, incense-waving priests of the Eastern Orthodox Church. More important for our purposes, though, is that a fourth member became an independent filmmaker.
Hence, here is “Parallel Love: The Story of a Band Called Luxury,” an interesting history of the band, from its frenzied heights of live shows to the roadside tragedy that nearly stopped them altogether to their present balance of God and guitar. Matt Hinton, whose earlier film celebrated his life as a Sacred Heart singer, had been added to the original Luxury lineup as an additional guitarist, so he has access to just about all existing film of live shows as well as footage from the post-crash hospital. He also has a built-in rapport with the band members he interviews, along with their ever-patient girlfriends and wives.
Still, as a later addition to the band and member, he also has a bit of outsider perspective on how it all happened.
Luxury formed at Toccoa Falls College, a tiny Christian college near the Chattahoochee National Forest, among guys who found themselves outsiders. They combined their individual musical interests (well depicted by Hinton by having them pose with their favorite album covers) and came up with something that sounded strange, certainly by rural Georgia standards — a fierce punk attack in the style of D.C. hardcore, but fronted by an androgynous, melodic voice of Lee Bozeman, who brought traces of Depeche Mode and Morrissey in his stylings.