Progressive. Powerful. Thrashy. But most of all…Heavy.
That is the keyword when it comes to Save Our Souls, the second full-length from Phear, out now digitally via Golden Robot Records. The album was carefully crafted for 5 years with most written during the COVID pandemic. With the uncertainty faced during that time, it was prudent for Save Our Souls to be fierce.
“With what was going on, we had a mandate,” says frontman Patrick Mulock. “We had a mandate from the first note. I wanted it to be heavier. I wanted Phear to be heavy.”
The lineup on Save Our Souls features Mulock on vocals, the guitar tandem of Pat Rogers and Alex Zubair on guitars, Chris Boshis on bass, and newest addition Mike Harshaw behind the kit. The philosophy of Phear is to be a heavy metal band.
“That’s why we change members sometimes,” explains the singer. “Chris Lewis, our past drummer, an amazing drummer. But he is a hard rock drummer. I want Phear to be a heavy metal band. And so did everybody, so I have two shredders, and I have this bass player that can play anything. And Harshaw came in and just added progressive elements to the thing.”
The lyrical tone of the songs can be pinned down when written. There’s a frustrated, angry theme to the compositions written during COVID and one of hope and moving on post-pandemic.
“As far as angry goes, it was just the state of the world. I mean, I’ve never been in a pandemic before,” answers Mulock. “SARS was something, but it was six months. I’ve never experienced this and I didn’t know what to expect. I lost two people, two friends to COVID. Most of the album actually is the basis of anarchy. The first single, ‘Save Our Souls’, although in the video, it’s taken a whole new meaning. When we wrote the video, we went a different route. But to me, I was watching someone right in front of me go through a mental illness, a breakdown. I’m a bit older school, military raised, so that was very foreign to me. So when I saw that, I was like, ‘oh my God,’ Save our souls. People are not coping right? So God help us.”
(Photo – Allyson W.)
Even with that stark, uncomfortable image, there is sense of hope to be found in the chorus.
Mulock states, “Well, the chorus is ‘God help us,’ right? Like God, please. Mayday, mayday! I wasn’t sure where everything was going. Now if you go to ‘Lease On Life’, it’s about starting over. So there are other songs that came when COVID ended. I pretty much write about what I read or see. You know, my life, I get to do music. So my life’s pretty good. But yeah, there’s some darkness to it. And that darkness go in with heavy, which goes hand-in-hand.”
A huge factor to the force of the album is sparkling sound and the clear bass presence. Take note of the intricate notes being played and how they don’t beat-for-beat with the guitars.
“I said this in an interview before because I go to every session, I make sure there that I’m there; I want to hear some certain things,” he says. “It was a masterclass in recording bass. Because when we did the bass, we rewrote the songs, and then when we heard what Mike Harshaw did on drums, we crafted the bass much more around the drums. But then when we were mixing – the whole band is there for mixing. And we make sure – of course I want vocals louder, everybody wants something, but we did something with the bass where, you know, a lot of times when you’re mixing bass, it’s distorted. So it blends very much with the guitar. We cleaned it up; Bosh likes it cleaner than that. And then we bring it up without distortion, without peeking out or anything like that. There was a whole process to mixing bass and John Howard did a fantastic job on it, but it went back and forth a lot because yeah, we want to hear the bass on that. We want the bass predominant. It’s not straight ahead root note bass parts. So we really want to hear it.”
What makes Phear work is the they are a well-oiled machine with a single vision with no dominant songwriter dictating the sessions. While Mulock is the most experienced and is the Phear spokesman, Phear is a true band relying on contributions from every member. Mulock seems himself more as the organizer, coordinator.
He explains his vision, process of the band, “Bosh wrote two songs, Alex and I got together, wrote songs, Alex wrote a song by himself. I guess I’m the spokesperson for the band and I’ve been in it the longest, everything, so it’s my band. It’s not my band. I’m the coordinator. Everybody has input – and that’s why there’s been member changes – because you got to find the right chemistry. I learned that watching a documentary on Iron Maiden, that how many people they went through until they found the right guys. The chemistry is there, but it took a while to find it.”
“I call Phear a gang,” he adds. “I did an interview where they were talking about why I like metal and stuff like that. And I said I like metal because its bands. And then I named all these individual artists that would go just by their name and stuff like that. And all due respect to them, but I like the gang, you know. I’m still hanging around the guys. We go to shows together, we go to breakfast, we go out to lunch. We have a great time. We have fights like every other band, but they last 10 minutes.”
The chemistry is on full display with the Nevermore cover “Narcosynthesis”. The lead song off their 2000 classic Dead Heart In A Dead World, Phear completely makes it their own and slots it early in the tracklisting. Mulock is a huge Nevermore fan, so naturally covering one of their songs was a no-brainer.
“When Warrel [Dane, singer] died, I said ‘ah, damn it.’ I really loved and I’m very excited about the new band, but I really was a fan. So initially the guys in the band that I have now, they knew of Nevermore, but they didn’t know Nevermore like I did. I was going to cover the song myself, like I did a Rush song with the guys from Sven Gali. But then the guys heard ‘Narcosynthesis’ and they go ‘I ought to be a part of this.’ So it turned out to be a Phear cover.
“We love playing it live and everybody loves that song so much. So that’s why it’s there where it is in the order. We thought, ok, we need to hit ‘em hard here right? We didn’t write it, but who cares? And when we did it, Nevermore was no longer, so it’s their song, but it became our song too. When we play it live, I have to tell everybody, it’s not our song. It’s a Nevermore song.”
The track perfectly flows with the first three songs of Save Our Souls. The first half is a full-on metal attack.
“It was probably one of the reasons that heavy was my mandate at the beginning of the album. I like seven strings. Every Phear song is written on seven string guitar. Now the Nevermore song is tuned down half a step. It’s a little bit different than us. We’re still at 4/40 regular, but yeah it just felt right. And it does feel like our song a lot of times. And Van [Williams, Nevermore drummer] saw the video for it and he really enjoyed it; that is what he wrote back to me.”
There’s also an element of death metal vocals included on some of the tracks, done by Boshis. Mulock sees their inclusion as an added effect and of course, part of the heavy mandate. Phear also recorded four covers during these and death metal vocals were added to a song that doesn’t have any on the original.
“Bosh can do it really well,” he adds about the death metal shouts. “So, if I’m writing a song and sometimes it’s as simple as a word like ‘death’ or ‘bleed.’ These lend themselves to that forceful, practically called ‘fry’ vocal. It lends itself to that. We won’t do a whole song with these vocals; we may do a phrase or a word, stuff like that. I’m like a classic metal singer. I’ve been told that it’s power metal or whatever you want to call me. If you listen to the album, it’s got elements of classic metal because of my voice, but it’s also got thrash in there. It’s got the growling vocals – Alex, our guitar player came from a death metal band. So it’s got elements of that. And there’s prog elements too. That’s why I always say it’s a heavy metal album.”
Golden Robot Records handled the digital release of Save Our Souls, however Mulock holds the physical rights to the album and recently received the CDs so fans are able to get their hands on a physical product. Mulock has a vision to serve the rights of Phear’s music and that comes with some breaking news of a company formed called Insanitarium Entertainment.
“So of all our publishing – because we’ve been approached, not sure for what it’s for yet, but while I was in Miami, I got an email about sync licensing for a movie or TV or video game, whatever they want to use our music for. So all that maintains to me, Golden Robot basically is doing the distribution of the digital. They have an option in the contract, which I’m not allowed to talk about, but if they want own physical, they have to negotiate with me.”
Mulock made a name for himself with Eidolon, the power/thrash collective formed by brothers Glen and Shawn Drover. Mulock sang on two albums, 2002’s Coma Nation and 2003’s Apostles Of Defiance, both issued via Metal Blade Records. Any possible reissues planned?
He answers, “Glen and Shawn still control Eidolon. It’s funny because I was in Las Vegas in October and I ran into Brian Slagel [head of Metal Blade Records]. And he remembers Eidolon and remembers us. I really can’t answer because Glen and Shawn have always owned the rights to that. I don’t know if they’re going to do – they’re busy with Withering Scorn. I love those two albums. To be a part of those two albums was certainly a turning point for me. Like, sometimes they ask, what was the turning point? I go, I think being on Eidolon helped me gain a bit of notoriety. So when I did come back and I formed Phear, people were curious.”
2025 will be a year for full of Phear. Live dates are planned for the fall with shows being announced throughout the summer. The band is happy with the response to Save Our Souls and Mulock has another plan up his sleeve to keep fans engaged by livestreaming their rehearsals.
“We’re going to set up our studio. I’m working on it every day. It’s going to livestream rehearsals. So you can see what goes into setting up the live show. It’s going to start off free. I think that’s the planning anyways. We have like five cameras in the room. You might see a fight or two. I don’t know what you are going to see. Not a physical fight, but a group fight! But you’ll see us rehearsing. You’ll be able to hear us, everybody. So we’ve done a few of these test things and I’m just going to say it now. Everybody goes, well, that it sounds too good. It can’t be you guys. So you’re getting our in-ear mix so you’re not getting loud mics in the room. You’re getting what we’re hearing in our ears. So that’s why it sounds so good.”
In other words – fans will hear what Phear hears. Fans can look for “Aftershock” being the next music video to promote Save Our Souls. Head to the band’s official website and Facebook for all things Phear.
Stream Save Our Souls here.
The post PHEAR – The Heavy Mandate appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
Continue reading...
That is the keyword when it comes to Save Our Souls, the second full-length from Phear, out now digitally via Golden Robot Records. The album was carefully crafted for 5 years with most written during the COVID pandemic. With the uncertainty faced during that time, it was prudent for Save Our Souls to be fierce.
“With what was going on, we had a mandate,” says frontman Patrick Mulock. “We had a mandate from the first note. I wanted it to be heavier. I wanted Phear to be heavy.”
The lineup on Save Our Souls features Mulock on vocals, the guitar tandem of Pat Rogers and Alex Zubair on guitars, Chris Boshis on bass, and newest addition Mike Harshaw behind the kit. The philosophy of Phear is to be a heavy metal band.
“That’s why we change members sometimes,” explains the singer. “Chris Lewis, our past drummer, an amazing drummer. But he is a hard rock drummer. I want Phear to be a heavy metal band. And so did everybody, so I have two shredders, and I have this bass player that can play anything. And Harshaw came in and just added progressive elements to the thing.”
The lyrical tone of the songs can be pinned down when written. There’s a frustrated, angry theme to the compositions written during COVID and one of hope and moving on post-pandemic.
“As far as angry goes, it was just the state of the world. I mean, I’ve never been in a pandemic before,” answers Mulock. “SARS was something, but it was six months. I’ve never experienced this and I didn’t know what to expect. I lost two people, two friends to COVID. Most of the album actually is the basis of anarchy. The first single, ‘Save Our Souls’, although in the video, it’s taken a whole new meaning. When we wrote the video, we went a different route. But to me, I was watching someone right in front of me go through a mental illness, a breakdown. I’m a bit older school, military raised, so that was very foreign to me. So when I saw that, I was like, ‘oh my God,’ Save our souls. People are not coping right? So God help us.”
(Photo – Allyson W.)
Even with that stark, uncomfortable image, there is sense of hope to be found in the chorus.
Mulock states, “Well, the chorus is ‘God help us,’ right? Like God, please. Mayday, mayday! I wasn’t sure where everything was going. Now if you go to ‘Lease On Life’, it’s about starting over. So there are other songs that came when COVID ended. I pretty much write about what I read or see. You know, my life, I get to do music. So my life’s pretty good. But yeah, there’s some darkness to it. And that darkness go in with heavy, which goes hand-in-hand.”
A huge factor to the force of the album is sparkling sound and the clear bass presence. Take note of the intricate notes being played and how they don’t beat-for-beat with the guitars.
“I said this in an interview before because I go to every session, I make sure there that I’m there; I want to hear some certain things,” he says. “It was a masterclass in recording bass. Because when we did the bass, we rewrote the songs, and then when we heard what Mike Harshaw did on drums, we crafted the bass much more around the drums. But then when we were mixing – the whole band is there for mixing. And we make sure – of course I want vocals louder, everybody wants something, but we did something with the bass where, you know, a lot of times when you’re mixing bass, it’s distorted. So it blends very much with the guitar. We cleaned it up; Bosh likes it cleaner than that. And then we bring it up without distortion, without peeking out or anything like that. There was a whole process to mixing bass and John Howard did a fantastic job on it, but it went back and forth a lot because yeah, we want to hear the bass on that. We want the bass predominant. It’s not straight ahead root note bass parts. So we really want to hear it.”
What makes Phear work is the they are a well-oiled machine with a single vision with no dominant songwriter dictating the sessions. While Mulock is the most experienced and is the Phear spokesman, Phear is a true band relying on contributions from every member. Mulock seems himself more as the organizer, coordinator.
He explains his vision, process of the band, “Bosh wrote two songs, Alex and I got together, wrote songs, Alex wrote a song by himself. I guess I’m the spokesperson for the band and I’ve been in it the longest, everything, so it’s my band. It’s not my band. I’m the coordinator. Everybody has input – and that’s why there’s been member changes – because you got to find the right chemistry. I learned that watching a documentary on Iron Maiden, that how many people they went through until they found the right guys. The chemistry is there, but it took a while to find it.”
“I call Phear a gang,” he adds. “I did an interview where they were talking about why I like metal and stuff like that. And I said I like metal because its bands. And then I named all these individual artists that would go just by their name and stuff like that. And all due respect to them, but I like the gang, you know. I’m still hanging around the guys. We go to shows together, we go to breakfast, we go out to lunch. We have a great time. We have fights like every other band, but they last 10 minutes.”
The chemistry is on full display with the Nevermore cover “Narcosynthesis”. The lead song off their 2000 classic Dead Heart In A Dead World, Phear completely makes it their own and slots it early in the tracklisting. Mulock is a huge Nevermore fan, so naturally covering one of their songs was a no-brainer.
“When Warrel [Dane, singer] died, I said ‘ah, damn it.’ I really loved and I’m very excited about the new band, but I really was a fan. So initially the guys in the band that I have now, they knew of Nevermore, but they didn’t know Nevermore like I did. I was going to cover the song myself, like I did a Rush song with the guys from Sven Gali. But then the guys heard ‘Narcosynthesis’ and they go ‘I ought to be a part of this.’ So it turned out to be a Phear cover.
“We love playing it live and everybody loves that song so much. So that’s why it’s there where it is in the order. We thought, ok, we need to hit ‘em hard here right? We didn’t write it, but who cares? And when we did it, Nevermore was no longer, so it’s their song, but it became our song too. When we play it live, I have to tell everybody, it’s not our song. It’s a Nevermore song.”
The track perfectly flows with the first three songs of Save Our Souls. The first half is a full-on metal attack.
“It was probably one of the reasons that heavy was my mandate at the beginning of the album. I like seven strings. Every Phear song is written on seven string guitar. Now the Nevermore song is tuned down half a step. It’s a little bit different than us. We’re still at 4/40 regular, but yeah it just felt right. And it does feel like our song a lot of times. And Van [Williams, Nevermore drummer] saw the video for it and he really enjoyed it; that is what he wrote back to me.”
There’s also an element of death metal vocals included on some of the tracks, done by Boshis. Mulock sees their inclusion as an added effect and of course, part of the heavy mandate. Phear also recorded four covers during these and death metal vocals were added to a song that doesn’t have any on the original.
“Bosh can do it really well,” he adds about the death metal shouts. “So, if I’m writing a song and sometimes it’s as simple as a word like ‘death’ or ‘bleed.’ These lend themselves to that forceful, practically called ‘fry’ vocal. It lends itself to that. We won’t do a whole song with these vocals; we may do a phrase or a word, stuff like that. I’m like a classic metal singer. I’ve been told that it’s power metal or whatever you want to call me. If you listen to the album, it’s got elements of classic metal because of my voice, but it’s also got thrash in there. It’s got the growling vocals – Alex, our guitar player came from a death metal band. So it’s got elements of that. And there’s prog elements too. That’s why I always say it’s a heavy metal album.”
Golden Robot Records handled the digital release of Save Our Souls, however Mulock holds the physical rights to the album and recently received the CDs so fans are able to get their hands on a physical product. Mulock has a vision to serve the rights of Phear’s music and that comes with some breaking news of a company formed called Insanitarium Entertainment.
“So of all our publishing – because we’ve been approached, not sure for what it’s for yet, but while I was in Miami, I got an email about sync licensing for a movie or TV or video game, whatever they want to use our music for. So all that maintains to me, Golden Robot basically is doing the distribution of the digital. They have an option in the contract, which I’m not allowed to talk about, but if they want own physical, they have to negotiate with me.”
Mulock made a name for himself with Eidolon, the power/thrash collective formed by brothers Glen and Shawn Drover. Mulock sang on two albums, 2002’s Coma Nation and 2003’s Apostles Of Defiance, both issued via Metal Blade Records. Any possible reissues planned?
He answers, “Glen and Shawn still control Eidolon. It’s funny because I was in Las Vegas in October and I ran into Brian Slagel [head of Metal Blade Records]. And he remembers Eidolon and remembers us. I really can’t answer because Glen and Shawn have always owned the rights to that. I don’t know if they’re going to do – they’re busy with Withering Scorn. I love those two albums. To be a part of those two albums was certainly a turning point for me. Like, sometimes they ask, what was the turning point? I go, I think being on Eidolon helped me gain a bit of notoriety. So when I did come back and I formed Phear, people were curious.”
2025 will be a year for full of Phear. Live dates are planned for the fall with shows being announced throughout the summer. The band is happy with the response to Save Our Souls and Mulock has another plan up his sleeve to keep fans engaged by livestreaming their rehearsals.
“We’re going to set up our studio. I’m working on it every day. It’s going to livestream rehearsals. So you can see what goes into setting up the live show. It’s going to start off free. I think that’s the planning anyways. We have like five cameras in the room. You might see a fight or two. I don’t know what you are going to see. Not a physical fight, but a group fight! But you’ll see us rehearsing. You’ll be able to hear us, everybody. So we’ve done a few of these test things and I’m just going to say it now. Everybody goes, well, that it sounds too good. It can’t be you guys. So you’re getting our in-ear mix so you’re not getting loud mics in the room. You’re getting what we’re hearing in our ears. So that’s why it sounds so good.”
In other words – fans will hear what Phear hears. Fans can look for “Aftershock” being the next music video to promote Save Our Souls. Head to the band’s official website and Facebook for all things Phear.
Stream Save Our Souls here.
The post PHEAR – The Heavy Mandate appeared first on BraveWords - Where Music Lives.
Continue reading...
