INTERVIEW: Art of Shock are ready to shine the ‘Black Light’ on their souls
Photo: Art of Shock’s new album is called Shine Black Light. Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by Atom Splitter PR with permission.
Thrash metal band Art of Shock are about to release their second album, Shine Black Light, on Century Media. The new recording, which has been a few years in the making, will be unleashed Friday, Sept. 8. The singles “The Spark,” “Death Stays Silent” and “Drag Me to Hell” have already been released with music videos, and the songs, exquisite examples of the band’s obvious talents, offer a preview of what’s to come. The Hollywood rockers are still thrashing around, but they have also matured as songwriters and performers, imbuing their tunes with more melody and contemplation.
The band consists of vocalist Art Geezar, lead guitarist Nicholas Ertel, bassist Brice Snyder and drummer Adrian Geezar, according to press notes. Art and Adrian are brothers, and together the quartet have created a motley variety of hard-rocking tracks, including “2020V,” “Devoid,” “You Don’t Know Me” and “The Defeated.”
“It was kind of heartbreaking because the first album, Dark Angeles, literally came out when the federal state started announcing the lockdowns,” Art said about the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on the band. “So that killed the tour. That killed everything that we could do to promote this album, right, so we had nothing else to do but go back to the studio and write, just to maintain our mental health or sanity basically.”
In the beginning stages of the recording process, Art and the band had trouble putting full ideas down on paper. Art admitted he was in and out of depression, and it was hard to know where to begin.
“I was writing a lot, every day, lots of ideas, but I wasn’t feeling it,” he said. “Obviously depressed at the moment, but eventually the ideas started taking shape. I realized at some point I was watching this crime show, right, and you see how these forensic teams use a UV light to uncover these blood stains and all kinds of bodily fluids and shit on an otherwise pristine house, right. So I was thinking, what if I had one of those that I could shine on people’s minds and souls, including my own? What if I could analyze myself like that? And that’s when it started making sense to me actually. Everything that I was writing about was about the human condition, and I was really preoccupied with these subjects. Here we are now. Survived the process.”
The songs on Shine Black Light are deeply personal because of this revelation. When Art and the band members decided to shine that “black light” on themselves, they wanted to share profound ideas and private feelings with the listeners, and hopefully connect with them through the lyrics.
“Some of these are my own personal experience,” Art said. “A lot of it is my feelings, my empathy toward what I see is happening to all the people, too. At least I’m trying to talk about it. There are a lot of subjects that we don’t talk about enough, I guess, like domestic violence or mental health crisis. I think it’s how you interpret the lyrics because everybody interprets a different way, but I hope that it can help people going through difficult circumstances, make their lives a little easier at least.”
Art said that Art of Shock operates as a complete band, and every member has a vote on the direction of the group. If Art writes a song, he brings it to Adrian, his brother, first, and then they share the tune with the other members. Decisions are made collectively, and constructive criticism is allowed.
“When the pandemic started, Nick, Adrian and I were living together,” Art said. “Then Nick moved to Colorado during the pandemic, and Brice, he lives in Orange County not too far from us. So we see each other constantly, and he comes down for breakfast, just to hang out sometimes because we’re great friends. We’re in a really good place. We can do this long distance now.”
Art of Shock can be defined as thrash metal, but it can also be defined as pure rock ‘n’ roll. For Art, all metal is essentially rock ‘n’ roll, so he doesn’t think too much about genres or categorization. “It just so happens that when Adrian and I play together, we play fast and intense,” he said. “Whatever we do, we tend to sound thrashy. We love all the obvious ones, the Big Four, but also our dearest influences might be surprising to you. They’re like Queen, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles. That’s the music that we grew up listening to actually.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Art of Shock’s new album is called Shine Black Light, which will be released Friday, Sept. 8 on Century Media. Click here for more information.
