By Jim Barber
Steeped in mythology, drawing on influences that harken again to the late Seventies heavy, doom-laden musical tomes of early Black Sabbath, with wholesome doses of the early psychedelia impressed sludge metallic of Vanilla Fudge and Blue Cheer, Barrie, Ontario’s maestros of fuzz-infused, fantastical spacey metallic music AAWKS are bringing their atmospheric depth and fantastical themes to an ever-widening viewers.
Their penchant for crafting music that’s as theatrically revelatory in its aural textures is undoubted. However it’s the literate storytelling that accompanies every chapter within the band’s new album On By way of the Sky Maze which actually units AAWKS out as a band to maintain one’s eyes – and ears – upon.
After forming with an preliminary lineup in 2019 and releasing their debut EP, a extra solidified lineup consisting of road-tested veterans of the Barrie and space music scene led to the band’s present roster in 2023, shortly after the issuance of their debut album, Heavy on the Cosmic.
That assortment of gifted and skilled gamers is headlined by main songwriter, vocalist/guitarist Kris Dzierbicki, together with his spouse, Randy, on drums, longtime good friend and musical confederate Roberto Paraiso on guitar, violin and a few synths and the newest addition, bassist Ryan Mailman, who additionally contributes a few of the guttural vocals and screams that punctuate a few of the tunes on the album.
In response to Kris, the band wish to maintain the true that means of their identify a thriller, which inserts in fully with their aesthetic and overarching artistic vibe.
“It would imply one thing. It is perhaps an acronym. And you’ll pronounce it nonetheless you need. Our guitarist Roberto at all times says that it’s a little bit of a play of phrases on the animal as a result of we’re large, heavy and gradual, like an ox,” stated Kris with a chuckle.
Numerous epithets have been thrown on the band to explain its type, principally to make issues simpler for music journalists and streaming platform applications. AAWKS has been dubbed as mixtures of Heavy, Psych, Stoner, Doom, Fuzz Rock and extra.
“What I say is, ‘hey, are you aware Black Sabbath?’ And most of the people say yeah. I then say it’s like if Black Sabbath wasn’t as gifted and performed slower but in addition possibly sooner at occasions. With bands and genres and sub genres, particularly in metallic, the longer you grasp round, each week or two there’s one other subgenre that you possibly can add on, one other adjective to throw in there,” stated Kris.
“And now the time period ‘Blackened’ appears to be arising an increasing number of, and its type of seeped into all of the totally different genres. There’s even Blackened Pop. However to me, for what we do, Black Sabbath was the birthplace. After which you could have all of the birthplaces of Stoner, like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, there’s a bunch. After which your start of Punk can be, say, The Kinks and later The Stooges. I feel what occurs is that individuals are so blown away by these pioneering bands they attempt to make their very own model of it, and it comes out sounding somewhat totally different. With us there’s Sabbath after which Vanilla Fudge and even some Cream.”
Randy and Kris have been a pair for quite a lot of years. When there was nonetheless some flux to the lineup of what would grow to be AAWKS, Kris requested Randy to take her pure sense of rhythm, exuberant character and love for rock and roll and learn to play the drums.
Working with Zeus’ (one other band from Barrie) drummer and drum teacher Rob Drake, and with numerous hours of devoted apply, Randy grew to become proficient sufficient to document drum tracks for AAWKS’ first full-length album. The sophistication of the rhythmic side of the band’s new album On By way of the Sky Maze demonstrates that Randy has taken to her new instrument with aplomb and never solely improved however advanced as a percussionist.
“I did just a few classes as a result of I had by no means performed a musical instrument, ever. Rob was actually nice at understanding how I’d be taught and be capable of play catch-up. And Kris was in a position to take that type of easy Meg White [White Stripes] really feel of what I may do and make it work. That’s what you hear on the primary album, it was a very simplified beat, in order that I may sustain with the remainder of them. I assume I’m a quick learner,” she stated, including that the proof within the proverbial pudding got here when the band began taking part in stay, the place one by no means is aware of from night time to nighttime what the onstage sound is perhaps, making it doubly difficult for a relative newcomer on such an integral instrument because the drum package.
“I’d say that about 60 per cent of the locations we play don’t also have a drum monitor. As a result of we’re taking part in in numerous dive bars and underground basement golf equipment and no matter. So numerous it’s simply expecting key moments with Kris. I type of feed off both his phrases or his taking part in, relying on the music. Every thing is a mathematical sample for me.”
When it comes to the songwriting for AAWKS, Kris performs a main function, inviting his bandmates so as to add their options and explicit nuances on each music.
“When the music is in its child kind I’ll deliver it to the band and that’s when it actually takes form numerous the time. Solos or sure riffs would possibly get adjusted as soon as the band begins taking part in them.” he stated, including that the lyrics are just about solely his area, giving him a possibility to comb via his ardour for fantastical, mythological, epic storytelling, which is in abundance on On By way of the Sky Maze.
“Loads of it’s allegorical or symbolic and pertains to issues I’ve been via. However I’m not like a people, singer/songwriter sort, and I don’t actually wish to write about my private love life or anger or melancholy. I wish to coat it with one thing fantastical. And that’s possibly the factor I like most about psychedelic music [or ‘Psych’] is regardless of how heavy or comfortable or regardless of the style is, you may make something psychedelic – it’s a type of music that takes you someplace mentally. So I would like my lyrics to do this too.
“So far as material I’ve at all times been into numerous basic science fiction like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury and George Orwell – stuff that has a message. However I even have learn numerous non-sci-fi non fantastical stuff like Charles Bukowski and Albert Camus, stuff that’s extra philosophical. I learn numerous books once I was rising up. What I’ve finished during the last 10 years since I’ve grow to be hooked on the web is learn articles as a substitute of studying whole books. If I actually get into some topic, I’ll go down a rabbit gap on the web and, hey, possibly it’s not all vetted, however I’m selecting up some data and getting concepts for tales.”
The precise assemble of a music begins with the guitar practically the entire time, Kris stated.
“I’d say 99 per cent of the time it often begins with a riff. Generally I’ll provide you with a drum beat as a result of I’m writing the drum half after which educating it to Randy. So if I really feel a sure beat or rhythm I’ll begin constructing on that. However there are additionally occasions when a music comes virtually absolutely fashioned the place I’ll have one riff, nevertheless it rapidly cascades into the entire music. That doesn’t occur typically, however when it does, it’s good,” he defined.
“Different occasions, you’ve received to wrestle them for fairly some time, like months and months and generally even years on finish earlier than they really grow to be a music that works. However, yeah, it’s often a riff after which the phrases will come after that. I’m at all times writing verses and arising with attention-grabbing takes on issues. If we’re watching a film or studying an article about Vikings or some type of occult factor, which may seep into the music. Once we’re on the street I’ll get impressed and a riff or melody line or phrase will simply come, and I’ll document it. However I even have notebooks everywhere in the jam area which can be all stuffed with completed and half-finished lyrics.”
The lead-off monitor on the album, ‘Celestial Magick’ is a good introduction to the general tone, vibe and ethos of AAWKS, and is predicated on a very evocative, however little-known story from Norse mythology, which Kris, Randy and the band adapt to create a doom-laden, sludgy epic that pulls the listener into one other realm.
“That was a type of the place I used to be studying about some bizarre Viking stuff, and I received on this thread about Viking burial rituals and a few of their practices. That they had this concept that should you don’t trim the nail tissue and the hair of the lifeless, which ought to have been trimmed when getting ready the physique to please the gods, it might go onto a ship referred to as Naglfar. This ship is fabricated from demons and ghouls and on Doomsday the ship can be forged out onto the world to create destruction and havoc and dying. And I believed it was a cool factor to put in writing about such an unbelievable visible,” Kris stated of the music.
Essentially the most Sabbath-like music on the document – and unabashedly so – is ‘Misplaced Dwellers,’ which options probably the most hypnotically thick soundscapes and insistently potent bass traces this aspect of Geezer Butler or Lemmy.
“We have been on tour with an ideal band from Montreal referred to as Sons of Arrakis. They’re a killer band, in order that was me attempting to put in writing a Sons of Arrakis music. However then I additionally paid homage to – or ripped off – a part of [Black Sabbath song] ‘Kids of the Grave,’ that type of chunky half within the riff, which I’ve at all times cherished. And like most of my songwriting, I had a visible, like a film taking part in in my head the entire time I used to be writing it,” he stated.
“It’s been most likely two and a half years since I wrote that music, however I can bear in mind picturing a planet that was on the verge of exploding – a dying planet. And this group of individuals got an omen, an indication that they wanted to go away the planet and have been supplied this portal to a special place.”
One of the crucial evocative and stirring songs on the album is the hauntingly enigmatic ‘Caerdroia.’
“Caerdroia is a Welsh time period for labyrinth. And I didn’t know {that a} labyrinth was totally different from a maze till I began studying about them. A labyrinth has no incorrect turns. So that you go in and also you attain the center part after which come again out. It’s for meditative functions, not a spot to trick you and the place you may get misplaced. And in my thoughts, a labyrinth has excessive partitions and I imagined it throughout the summer time solstice and there was a pagan ceremony with this group of people that get caught within the labyrinth without end,” Kris stated, declaring how the influences already mentioned embrace Norse mythology and Welsh folklore, however that a few of the songs, such because the cinematic ‘Cursed Soul,’ come straight from his affinity for the trendy horror style.
“Over the previous few years, I’ve actually received again into horror films. I watched lots rising up however went away from them for some time. This music is a couple of séance and, just like the theme of a few of the different songs, a personality will get pulled from one place into one other. And once I was writing it, I used to be absolutely invested within the visuals in my head and attempting to translate them right into a music. I bear in mind studying about one thing referred to as the Seventh Sense and utilizing it to raze the sky and naturally raze on this sense means to fully and totally destroy one thing. I used to be all in favour of how this Seventh Sense is the attention of ourselves in three-dimensional area. So this spirit embodies the one who is within the séance after which destroys every thing round it. I feel it’s a really visible music,” Kris defined.
“Many of the songs we’re speaking about are associated to the underlying theme of the album which is motion from one place to a different, or totally different variations of life and dying.”
Like many bands whose members have day jobs, intensive touring is a problem, however within the wake of the discharge of On By way of the Sky Maze, AAWKS will attempt to get out for runs of three and 4 dates at a time, which incorporates some exhibits in Ontario later in Might opening for Montreal’s Sandveiss in Toronto on Might 23 on the Bovine Intercourse Membership, adopted by a present at The Mansion in Kingston on Saturday Might 24.
For extra data on the band, go to https://www.aawks.ca.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and writer based mostly in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for greater than 30 years. In addition to his journalistic endeavours, he works as a communications and advertising specialist, and is an avid volunteer in his group. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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