MC Lars (real name:
Andrew Nielsen) began making hip-hop-based tapes while still a kid, but was sidetracked from rap by such traditionally important issues (to teenagers) as playing guitar in a punk band and getting accepted to a college.
Nielsen went to Stanford and then did an exchange stint at Oxford, but all the while he was fiddling with desktop productions and developing his quirky, pop-culture-savvy style. Boisterous live gigs and word of mouth built buzz for
Lars' home-studio raps (influences: everything from
Atom & His Package and
Weird Al Yankovic to
KRS-One and
the Beastie Boys).
London imprint Truck Records issued a
Lars full-length, Radio Pet Fencing, in 2003, and the MC followed that with U.S. and U.K. tour dates. While the entirety of Fencing was recorded on his computer, the 2004 EP
Laptop -- while still charmingly simplistic -- was a comparatively grander production, with samples of notable rockers (
Piebald,
Brand New) and a stronger melodic sense. Cuts like "iGeneration" and "Signing Emo" were hits with downloaders and mtvU viewers, and
MC Lars did live dates with groups like
Gym Class Heroes and
Bowling for Soup through spring 2005. The full-length
The Graduate -- as
MC Lars could hence call himself a Stanford alum -- appeared in March 2006.
In 2009, he collaborated with
Weird Al Yankovic on "True Player for Real," a track from
This Gigantic Robot Kills, and he was joined by
KRS-One and
Sage Francis for Lars Attacks! in 2011. One year later, the Edgar Allan PoeEP dropped.
Lars' 2015 project,
The Zombie Dinosaur LP, was funded by Kickstarter and featured appearances from
Kool Keith and
Watsky, among others; it reached Billboard's Heatseekers chart. Next came the 2016 mixtape Donald Trump Has Very Bad Morals and a 2017 EP, Revenge of the Nerd. ~ Johnny Loftus