“True artists don’t wait around for the industry to tell them what they’re supposed to play,” offers Owl front man and bassist Chris Wyse. “The artist has to be the hub around which everything else revolves. And Owl is all about the music.” When the music is this unconventional and edgy, that’s the only way it should be. An innovative power trio that stands out immediately with Wyse’s preference for playing a bowed, electric upright bass, Owl has been dubbed hard rock, experimental, metal and progressive thanks to intriguing and enigmatically captivating music that draws comparisons to bands like Tool and The Doors while remaining uniquely Owl. Adds guitarist Jason Mezilis, “Even though we come from a background of more traditional influences, this band is all about being modern and relevant. We’re not interested in sounding like something you’ve heard before, even though the energy is familiar.”
This winter, Owl will release an EP-length follow-up and accompanying short film to its acclaimed 2009 self-titled debut album. It’s only the next small step for a group of seasoned musicians who are continually pushing sonic boundaries. Heavy and anthemic, yet progressive in every sense of the word, Owl’s new EP boasts moments of rock bombast combined with ethereal bliss, courtesy of uncanny guitar chops, wildly experimental bass technique, intriguing time signatures and adhesive melodies. Welcome to the sound of 21st Century Rock.
The ambition to blaze new musical trails is almost expected when you consider the breadth of experience the three individual members of Owl bring to a group dynamic. Currently the bassist for The Cult, Chris Wyse boasts an impressive resume that includes recording & performing with Tal Bachman, Jerry Cantrell, all-star consortium Camp Freddy, producer Bob Rock and Ozzy Osbourne. Chris also appears in the documentary Some Kind Of Monster during his audition for Metallica’s then-vacant bassist role. Originally inspired by the extreme style of Steve Harris and Billy Sheehan, Chris admits that he wanted to reinvent the traditional approach to the electric bass. Once he transitioned to the upright, he sought to apply the passion and experimentation of Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page to the instrument, which saw the development of his almost conjuring-like bowing style and incorporation of various effects. Says the bassist, “Owl has been my centerpiece, and yet it’s been behind the scenes. What we’re interested in now is expanding our audience.”
When Chris formed Owl, he knew there was only one drummer he wanted to work with: his longtime friend Dan Dinsmore. Chris and Dan met growing up in New York and played together in a band as teenagers before Chris moved out West and Dan joined industrial electro-rock band The Clay People. Influenced by a diverse group of drummers ranging from Louis Bellson to Steve Gadd and John Bonham, Dinsmore refers to himself as a “heavy hitter with a little bit of jazz.” Dan has earned a formidable reputation as a session player, recording numerous projects with acclaimed producer Mike Clink (Guns ‘N’ Roses, Motley Crue) and playing a variety of national gigs. Dan’s powerhouse drumming is a lynchpin to Owl’s tightly structured sound. Dan owns and operates O Studios, providing the band with an East Coast recording base, and Overit Media, an umbrella company for the band’s label and merchandise / marketing arm.
“When Chris formed Owl, he knew there was only one drummer he wanted to work with: his longtime friend Dan Dinsmore.”
Guitarist Jason Achilles Mezilis joined Owl as a veteran of several hard rock bands, including LA’s Your Horrible Smile. But Jason brings an added dimension to the group thanks to his considerable experience as a skilled producer and engineer. In early 2010, Jason also released his first solo EP, Between the Lines, on which he reinterprets a variety of across-the-board rock standards. While his guitar influences include Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, Andy Summers and Steve Clark, Jason’s first instrument was the classical piano. In this way, his musical sensibilities mesh perfectly with Chris’s Paganini-esque approach to the bass. Chris acknowledges that the group’s shared chemistry is electric. “I’m doing this with my childhood buddy and one of my best friends here in LA, so it’s more of a genuine article then if we just got together because we thought we could rock Hollywood. We had the same vision and wanted to be a little bit different. Once we started playing together, it just clicked.”
With Chris serving as producer, the band released Owl in February of 2009. Critics called this collection of 14 original songs “gimmick-free, meticulously composed prog rock” and “an eclectic mix of sounds and themes crafted outside the norms of the traditional modern rock record format.” Owl’s first single, “Pusher” – co-written by Chris with songwriter / producer Marti Frederiksen (Aerosmith, Eminem) – was accompanied by a dark, engaging video mixing hand-drawn still animation with live footage of the band in action. Chris’s use of the standup bass created a mesmerizing visual centerpiece, and the album and video quickly caused a sensation in LA’s tightly–knit hard rock community. The band capitalized on an early buzz by performing select club gigs around the US and Canada. Owl also scored opening slots with high-profile acts such as Jet and Helmet. In short order, Owl earned the deserved reputation of being the rare band that presents much more in the live arena than it can on record.
Jason attempts to unlock the enigma. “Part of what brands us as Owl is how the guitar and the bass have a unique interplay, where Chris and I switch off between who’s doing rhythm and who’s doing lead. Suddenly, the bass might take the melody while the guitar goes into a rhythmic, atmospheric bed track. In order to do that, sometimes we incorporate a delay or flange or whatever effect helps me create that atmospheric landscape that Chris can go over. With Chris and I coming from a similar background, I think that approach really applies to the sensitivity of the arrangements. Owl is intelligent music that requires musicality from everyone to do what we’re doing, but it also requires us to be sensitive and listening to what’s going on around us, versus just thumping away on our parts.”
“Part of what brands us as Owl is how the guitar and the bass have a unique interplay, where Chris and I switch off between who’s doing rhythm and who’s doing lead.”
Produced once again by Chris and engineered by Alex Todorov, the EP is aurally kaleidoscopic and multi-dimensional. Four diverse tracks deliver Owl’s distinctive brand of rock while venturing into exploratory realms of layered instrumentation and cerebral textures. Of the recording process, Jason explains, “the detail work, overdubbing and vocals were recorded at Dan’s O Studios, but most of the guitars and all the drum tracks were done at Matt Sorum’s DRAC studio in Los Angeles. A primary focus of this recording was to secure a fantastic drum sound; as if John Bonham were playing in 2010 – that’s the sound we wanted to make sure we captured. Dan is, to this day, the loudest, most massive drummer I’ve ever played with,” he continues. “On this EP, we really wanted people to hear the power that we get across in the live shows, and the way Dan hits the drums is a major part of that.”
Atmospherics are in evidence on the EP’s opening track, “Don’t Know What You’ve Got” (co-written once again by Chris with Marti Frederiksen), thanks to Chris’s distorted upright bass, Jason’s pedal guitar line and Dan’s bombast of drums. You can hear the Jim Morrison influence in Chris’s vocal as he takes on the role of the storyteller, pulling the listener in with the chorus’s resonant lyrical hook, “You don’t know what you’ve got / But you will when it’s gone.” Says Chris, “I think there’s a pop sensibility to the songs, too, even where we get experimental. The melodies and hooks are very strong.” “The Right Thing” again showcases Chris’s diverse vocal delivery range, with an aggressive vocal delivery that recalls Trent Reznor at his most angst-ridden, as propulsive, crushing riffs buttress alternately soaring and seething vocals. Jason observes, “When Chris’s delivery goes to the screaming vocal you hear on ‘The Right Thing’ or ‘Don’t Know,” that’s one of the ways that Owl goes beyond our influences and pushes out into, I don’t want to say dangerous territory, but something that has a real edge to it.”
Chris refers to “Perfect” as “just a really pretty song” where layers of reoccurring flourishes, including aurally adhesive circular piano motif accented by tympanis and lush vocal harmonies create a memorable, commercially accessible tune. “There are little things I blended together to make ‘Perfect’ sound the way it does,” says Chris. “It’s a bit more expansive comparatively, as far as the orchestration is concerned.” The band agrees that the EP’s masterstroke arrives in the form of the track “Send” – a dark, epic rock composition where Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” tangles with Jane’s Addiction’s “Three Days.” “I’m really proud of that song,” states drummer Dan Dinsmore. “‘Send’ definitely reveals how our music has moved into a more dynamic and epic sound, and lyrically it delves right into Chris’s soul. ‘Send’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve recorded, ever.”
Because Owl’s music encourages imaginative extrapolation, it lends itself easily to the visual narrative. Says Chris, “Part of the fun we’re having with this CD is that we’re going further and presenting a fully animated short film to be released in conjunction with the music. If you go to iTunes the day this comes out, you’ll get the four-song EP, but you’ll also get a 10-minute video montage of all four songs as well.” Jason elaborates, “Chris, Dan and I all grew up loving comic books and animation, and the nature of the band has a mystical, even supernatural energy that’s really cohesive to creating a fictional story arc very similar to a graphic novel.” Working together while staying conscious of how the songs would be sequenced on the EP, the band conceived and storyboarded a dystopian fantasy with heroic overtones, in which the songs segue seamlessly over a compelling visual tale. Created with the assistance of director Lawrence Basso, the animation and production were completed by Dan’s company, Overit Media. “The integrity of Owl as a hard-hitting, three-piece rock band stays intact,” says Jason, “but the film is going to be very cool and fun.”
With the release of the new EP, what Owl wants most to do is get in front of as wide an audience as possible. Says Jason, “It’s easy to say that Owl takes certain familiar elements and combines them in a new way, but I think part of what makes the band unique is that we embrace the atmospheric and the raw power equally. We don’t sacrifice anything to get our message across. There’s a spatial quality to the band that adds an extra dimension to it when we play live. When I’m throwing out these extended chordal sequences and Chris is taking the bass to Venus, it’s going to blow your mind. When Chris goes nuts on the electric stand up bass he reminds me of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Fantasia. I feel like he’s conjuring sounds and energies beyond his control. We throw down behind that, and then it at all snaps back to this super-defined, heavy, powerful groove that slaps you in the face. We embrace the same things that made the bands that we love great. We’re just putting it across in a new way.”
Chris concludes, “We have the independence of doing this the way that we feel it should be done. We have new management that is fully supportive and we don’t have any pressure from labels. Once this EP and video are released, we feel like we can take it anywhere.”
