Richard Cheese operates as the stage identity of Mark Jonathan Davis, the Los Angeles-based actor, comedian, and singer who blends cover versions with comedic performance. At the dawn of the new millennium Cheese gained swift popularity through elegant lounge-and-swing interpretations of current rock, rap, and Top 40 material. Following the appearance of his first recording, the 2000 album Lounge Against the Machine, Cheese and his ensemble have entertained listeners across many countries while producing a steady succession of finger-snapping discs that wittily fuse earlier and contemporary styles.
After encountering tracks such as the Prodigy’s “Smack My Bitch Up” and Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice,” the comedian and lounge singer Richard Cheese concluded he inhabited what he terms “a Golden Age of songwriting.” He alone appeared to recognize that Slipknot and the Beastie Boys were composing the future standards destined to anchor American music; with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin no longer active, Cheese decided it fell to him to highlight this fact. He adopted his tiger-striped tuxedo, assembled a group of Vegas-oriented players for his refined swing ensemble, and issued his debut, Lounge Against the Machine, on the Oglio label in 2000.
Cheese’s uncensored and “swankified” renditions of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” and Nirvana’s “Rape Me” soon attracted morning shock-jock airplay and the attention of novelty-music listeners in stores. CNN and The Los Angeles Times both ran profiles, after which he secured the role of co-host and bandleader on MTV’s Say What Karaoke. His next release, Tuxicity, arrived in 2002 and included swinging treatments of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” and Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” the latter becoming a favorite among the fans known as “Dick-Heads.”
Prior to issuing I’d Like a Virgin in 2004, Cheese had appeared on the Opie & Anthony and Howard Stern programs and led the house band for NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly; that album contained versions of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” the latter supported by a children’s choir. Aperitif for Destruction followed in 2005 and presented the Beastie Boys’ “Brass Monkey” alongside Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” The ensuing year brought the compilation The Sunny Side of the Moon: The Best of Richard Cheese and the holiday set Silent Nightclub—“a collection of happenin’ holiday hits.” In 2007 Cheese supplied classic television themes on Dick at Nite, then issued the concert recording Viva La Vodka: Richard Cheese Live and the studio album OK Bartender, which supplied Cheese-style readings of material first performed by Lady Gaga, Weezer, and Miley Cyrus. The cheeky Live at the Royal Wedding appeared in 2011 together with A Lounge Supreme, his eleventh full-length studio album.
Back in Black Tie, described as a tribute to “the deadest rappers and rock stars in music history,” surfaced in 2012 along with two compilations. The Royal Baby Album, a studio counterpart to the tracks heard on Live at the Royal Wedding, reached stores in 2013, while the second seasonal collection, Cocktails with Santa, followed later that winter. Another productive stretch in 2015 yielded the live set Bakin’ at the Boulder plus the studio albums Supermassive Black Tux and the Star Wars-themed The Lounge Awakens: Richard Cheese Live at the Mos Eisley Spaceport Cantina.
During 2016 two Cheese recordings were placed in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and in 2017 Cheese and his band appeared in animated form in The Lego Batman Movie. Licensed to Spill, another studio album, arrived later that year, while 2019 brought Richard Cheese’s Big Swingin’ Organ, an instrumental collection of organ renditions of several audience favorites. Numbers of the Beast appeared in 2020; an autobiography titled Atlas Lounged: The Music, Movies, and Madness Behind Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine plus two further studio projects were slated for 2021.
