Guitarist Phil Demmell (Machine Head, Vio-Lence) has teamed up with guitarist Mike Orlando (Adrenaline Mob), vocalist John Bush (Anthrax, Armored Saint), drummer Jason Bittner (Overkill, Shadows Fall), and bassistd Jack Gibson (Exodus) in a new, as-yet-unnamed group which is presently working on songs for their debut album.
During a recent interview with guitarist Marzi Montazeri (Exhorder, Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals) on We'll Name It Later, which can be seen below, Demmell spoke about the formation of this new band. An excerpt has been transcribed as follows:
How did this new project come about?
Phil Demmell: "I was doing a one-off, the first Overkill thing, and this is just right after things are opening up. It's in Jersey, so we go up to Dingbatz… and Orlando comes and meets us, and it's Corey Pierce from God Forbid. And so we're there all getting loaded. And at a certain point, it was just, like, 'Man, we got the band right here, man. Why don't we do something? Why don't we write music together?' And we're all, 'Yeah, let's do.' And then the next day, we're kind of hung over, going, 'Hey, man, did we mean it? Did we mean that? Yeah, let's see what can happen.' And I came back... and me and Orlando got together and we just got in the room and started throwing riffs at each other and came up with, like, a dozen or so riffs that he took back. And you know Mikey O — he's got his own studio, and he gets behind something. And he's got such a great ear. He's a phenomenal guitar player. And he's got a great ear for music and melody. So he starts putting the shit together. And we're, like, Damn, this is fucking cool!
Phil Demmell: "It's kind of like... it's heavier than the early Van Halen and the early Pantera stuff that's on the — you know, the shuffle beat. It's on the upbeat; a lot of it's on the upbeat, not on the down. So it's the head-bobbing type of BPMs, you know? So it's different. Nobody's really doing that now. And then so we're thinking, it's like, all right, well, bass player and vocalists. Vocalists, who would you guys want? Let's make our list. Start at the top.' And then bang, bang, bang. All at the top was 'John Bush', 'John Bush', 'John Bush'. We're, like, 'Hmm.' I said I know him from Metal Allegiance. We broed down a little bit — we talked sports and stuff — so I said, I know him enough to call him up and ask him. So I did. And he was super… We were in the friend zone for a while — you know, non-committal. And it's been bit by bit by bit. So, we've written about ten tunes, we've got vocals to seven of 'em. And it's super exciting, man. We don't even have solos on the songs yet."
(Photo courtesy of the Mike Orlando Music page on Facebook)
