Prussian Blue (duo)

Prussian Blue is a controversial white nationalist folk teen duo formed in early 2003 by Lynx Gaede and Lamb Gaede (pronounced gay-dee or in IPA, ), fraternal twin girls born June 30, 1992 and brought up in the United States. Lynx plays violin and bass guitar, Lamb plays guitar, and both of the girls sing.

History

Lynx and Lamb Gaede first performed together by singing at a white nationalist festival called Eurofest in 2001. They began to learn to play instruments in 2002. In the same year they appeared on a VH1 special called "Inside Hate Rock". In 2003, they were featured in a Louis Theroux BBC documentary, entitled Louis and the Nazis, on white supremacy in the United States. Lamb, Lynx and their mother April also appeared in a low-budget 2003 horror film called Dark Walker. ^* They recorded and released a debut CD at the end of 2004 called Fragment of the Future (Resistance Records) which had both an acoustic folk-rock and a bubblegum pop sound. A year later, they recorded their second album, The Path We Chose, which has a more traditional rock sound including both acoustic and electric guitar. Most of the songs on the second album lack the racial and nationalist overtones of Fragment of the Future and are about more mainstream subject matter, like boys, crushes, and dating. On October 20, 2005, Prussian Blue was featured in a critical segment on ABC's Primetime ^*. A DVD, Blonde Hair Blue Eyes, featuring 3 music videos and some live performances, was released in 2005. The duo toured the US in 2005.

Ideology

The group has strong ties to the National Vanguard organization, a white nationalist group formed by disaffected former members of the National Alliance. Their ideology has been described as racist and white supremacist in nature by many organizations: ^*" target="_blank" >[http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=30523. It is reported that "their on stage antics include executing the Sieg Heil salutes". ^*

According to an article from ABC News, the girls were homeschooled by their mother, April Gaede, an activist and writer for the white nationalist organization National Vanguard. The article further discusses the twins' grandfather, who wears a swastika belt buckle, uses the Nazi symbol on his truck and registered it as a cattle brand. The twins have a baby sister named Dresden, after the city in Germany. Though the family was originally located in Bakersfield, California, the twins' mother has sold their home because she prefers to raise her children where more whites are represented. She has since moved the family to a small town outside Seattle, Washington that has a strong White Nationalist community.

They describe their ancestry as English, Scottish and German. The band was named after the color Prussian blue, as a reference to the girls' Prussian heritage and their blue eyes. They also stated that they think Prussian blue is "just a really pretty color"; however, in an interview with viceland.com, they stated that it is also a reference to the claims made by many Holocaust deniers (generally regarded as misguided by historians, chemists, and others) that "(t)here is also the discussion of the lack of 'Prussian Blue' coloring (Zyklon B residue) in the so-called gas chambers in the concentration camps. We think it might make people question some of the inaccuracies of the Holocaust myth."^*. During their ABC interview, the twins said they believe Adolf Hitler was a good man with great ideas, such as eugenic standards and incentives to improve the genetic quality of the German people, and marriage loans to help qualified German families begin upon a firm financial basis. In the interview, the twins described the Holocaust as being exaggerated.

They have recently been criticized for stipulating that goods they donated to Hurricane Katrina victims should go only to white people; "After a day of trying, the supplies ended up with few takers, dumped at a local shop that sells Confederate memorabilia." In the ABC Primetime segment referred to above, their representative can be seen going from house to house looking for someone willing to accept a donation of household supplies on a "whites only" basis without success, until a white woman, at first incredulous that there would be such a stipulation, exclaims "Screw y'all!"

Lyrics and influences

Most of the songs on Prussian Blue's first album are covers of white nationalist songs. The majority of those were written by David Lane, Ian Stuart, and Ken McLellan. Two of Prussian Blue's songs on their first album are dedicated to famous Nazis and neo-Nazi activists such as Rudolf Hess and Robert Jay Mathews. One of those songs, which was written by Lamb, is "Sacrifice":

Rudolf Hess, man of Peace

He wouldn't give up and he wouldn't cease

Remember him and give a pause

Robert Mathews knew the Truth

He knew what he had to do

He set an example with Courage so bold

We'll never let that fire grow cold

Another song of theirs, "Gone With the Breeze," is dedicated to Robert Mathews. The cover songs the duo chose to include on their album invoke ideas like Valhalla and Vinland, taken from Norse mythology and sagas. Several of the songs, including "Victory Day," refer to a race war which the members of Prussian Blue believe to be coming soon.

The debut single for their second album, "The Stranger," is adapted from a poem by Rudyard Kipling which is popular with white supremacists and nationalists.

On their blog Prussian Blue recently released a cover of a song called "Ocean of Warriors" in mp3 format, dedicated to white participants in the 2005 Sydney, Australia race rioting and the 2005 Civil unrest in France

Family conflict

The girls' mother divorced their father in 1997, citing domestic violence and drug abuse. She moved from California with the girls to Montana. The father cited the mother's racist ideology, which he also used to support but has now renounced, as justification for seeking custody. However, on June 2, 2006 a Fresno, California judge ruled that the mother would retain custody.

Prussian Blue recorded a new song, "Your Daddy," and made it available for download online on June 17, 2006 (Father's Day). The song lyrics echo the custody battle: