Steve Smyth.........The Esseness Project

[Deadly Embrace]

TESTAMENT Guitarist Working On THE ESSENESS PROJECT
TESTAMENT guitarist Steve Smyth has spent time recently working on his instrumental side project called THE ESSENESS PROJECT. The band, which features Smyth and his longtime friend Steven Hoffman (ex-ARIAH/SWEET LEAF bassist), was previously described as "progressive" and "covering a wide spectrum of moods," with some of the material being worked on spanning back to several years ago. "This is something I planned to do before joining VICIOUS RUMORS in '95, but never had the chance to complete," Smyth explained. THE ESSENESS PROJECT will continue to operate around the writing/recording schedules for the next TESTAMENT CD, which is tentatively expected to surface before the end of the year.


From Blabbermouth.Net

 

[NecromancerAlpha]

wow thats cool, yay testament before the year is over weeee!!

 

[Testament Legions]

Well, like it it says... "tentatively." Let's cross our fingers!

 

[Insania]

What role does Smytheeee have in writing Testament material? I'm just curious. Personally, my own creativities and designs usually suck -- I prefer to let others do that while I do better in supporting roles. If I could be a shredda, I'd be just fine playing others' stuff, wouldn't bother me.

 

[Testament Legions]

What role does Smytheeee have in writing Testament material? I'm just curious. Personally, my own creativities and designs usually suck -- I prefer to let others do that while I do better in supporting roles. If I could be a shredda, I'd be just fine playing others' stuff, wouldn't bother me.

He was supposed to respond to this thread, but couldn't get on-line. I'll tell him to try again.

 

[turtle94587]

steve kicks ass,i want to check out the new project !!!!!!!!

 

[Testament Legions]

Hey Turtle !

Ack... Smyth says he's having probs getting onto the forum. He'll try again later.

 

[Dirt Junior]

Where Can We Get The Cd???

 

[Testament Legions]

Dirt, it's not thrash metal... more progressive, shred guitar stuff.

I think he said it will be out later this year if things work out.

 

[Steve Smyth]

OK, I can finally get on this freaking board to post! Insania, to answer your question, here goes. I tried this the other day, and the post got lost...
I am throwing my "two riffs" in whenever and wherever it may be needed, or asked for, although with Eric and Chuck being the primary songwriters of Testament, they don't need this all that much. I also try to offer opinions and arranging suggestions whenever and whereever needed, and again, I will stress, IF needed. I am writing my own solo sections though, as in the rhythm behind what I'll be soloing over, and I think there will be some cool stuff in there as well.The songs are coming along good, we're still in writing mode so it's early to say what's gonna stick and what's gonna get thrown out a window, but I've heard and worked with Eric on 7 to 8 songs in various stages, and they are sounding killer to me! Oh yeah, in light of John not being able to commit to writing sessions as much due to family matters, I program a pretty damn mean drum machine too!

As for the REAL info this post was intended for, yes, I am working on my instrumental project, The EssenEss Project ( a play on words based on mine and my band mates name, Steve ( SNS), and we had it ten years before that fucking rapper, so DON'T GO THERE!), and we're getting demos done for it in between writing sessions for Testament and DL, and will have it recorded by the years end for sure. The music is very moody, progressive, and Heavy, but not entirely metal sounding instrumental music. It's gonna cover a lot of different areas, kind of fusing some stuff together, but still with as much heavy guitar ( and bass) work as we can get away with. I'll keep everyone posted on this later, as it develops more. Right now, the demos are about halfway completed, and should be nearly done by mid summer.:hotjump:

 

[hiddenlegions]

I program a pretty damn mean drum machine too!

HAHAH ! Thanks for the update Steve ! Great to hear all this new music is in the process of being written.

BTW -- I have had the same thing happen to me MANY times, you accidentally hit the back button on the browser and you lose EVERYTHING you typed ... sucks .... Plus Ultimate Metal is extremely intermittent in getting to the board.

\m/

 

[dualrecto]

Sounds like you have a lot of stuff on your plate Steve. Can't wait to hear some of it and hope to see some Dragonlord shows soon.

 

[turtle94587]

excellent,can't wait to hear this new stuff you got going on steve .