After returning from a string of shows in New York, Chris Wyse still can’t stop talking about his new band, Owl. Wyse, who is most famously known for his work with The Cult, has played with an impressive list of artists. From Ozzy Osbourne to Metallica, Wyse has made a name for himself as one of today’s premier bass players. But now, with the recent emergence of Owl, Wyse finds himself in a place of unparalleled creative control, where he can let the music just be music.
Wyse is modest though about his creative influence on the album. Dan Denismore, drums, and Jason Mezilis, guitar, played equal parts in thee band, and albums creation.
So what made you want to start your own band?
“One of the big advantages is that I just don’t get to do this kind of music, playing upright bass, and kind of experimental, in any other kind of band. Owl just gave me a whole new opportunity to make my own concept, and just go for it.”
Both writing and producing, Owl’s self titled debut is truly his creation.
“It was a really great experience. I kind of knew the vision, and had the sound in my head already. And I would think that at this point, after having worked with some of the worlds greatest producers that it was time for me to just do this. It gets complicated working with other people because they have other schedules, other bands, and all that. So I just went for it. I’m really happy with it too.”
So do you consider this your band, or did the other members contribute a lot to it as well?
“Well I was sort of the seed planter. Dan and I got back together. I had moved out to Los Angeles, and he stayed in New York where we had grown up playing together and we were super competitive, and fiery. He’s one of the best in the world, and I’ve always wanted to get back together with him. It’s really just us getting back together, and Jason, who’s a close friend who plays guitar and was really into the band anyways. We’d all just go hanging out, and having beers together and I’d always talk about my band, and he’d talk about how he wanted to be in a real band, so there were some lineup changes and I talked to the two of them and just felt like wow, here it is, a real opportunity for the four of us, a real group. Not just something put together. Everybody was on the same page. Dan owns the record label and media company that did the video. It’s just a cool group of people. It’s more of a genuine thing, instead of, you know, we have to make it, like we have to make it big time. We were more like we’re doing this, period.”
So where are you now? Still in New York?
“I’m back in LA now, doing dry cleaning because I’m getting ready to go to Europe, a three week stint, with The Cult.”
The album contains some great lyrics, and you wrote most of the songs. But you got some help from Martin Fredrickson.
“Yeah he’s a buddy of mine. We worked together on a few of the songs. He helped me open up a little bit. I got my vision I feel regardless, but it was fun to try to broaden up my scope and work with someone else. Well I’ve always co-written. I’m always throwing ideas around with Dan and Jason for the next record, so its not that its hard for me to co-write, its just a different experience working with Marti whose written with Ozzie, The Cult, and he procured hits for them, so I have a lot of respect for him.”
Is your writing more lyric based, or do you just fool around with riffs?
“Well it’s a little different from time to time, but I’m really a chorus guy. I hear the chorus in my head. Every time I went to Marti I had the chorus all ready in my head, and we’d tweak it a little bit, like “Alive” is a song on the record, and that whole thing just popped into my head almost instantaneously and the song just wrote itself. So I come up with a chorus, that’s the seed, and then try to embellish around it. But like “Violent Standard,” when I wrote a riff like that I was just messing around and was like what the heck is this, it was so twisted, I didn’t even know what meter it was or anything. It was so twisted, and I put some melody in, and some banshee shit on it. I’m a chorus guy though. I’m usually just running in the house and trying to figure some things out.”
Yeah, there’s a video of you on Youtube fooling around with the H2 and H4 zoom. Is that what you record with?
“Yeah, sometimes I do. A lot of times I do. I’ll just open it up to record some raw ideas. I don’t really get fancy with it. Yeah, I don’t get fancy with anything until the studio. So yeah, its more just documenting for me. I use the digital thing on the phone too, I mean whatever.”
You just released “The Pusher” video. Do you put your visual ideas into that? What’s your role in making that video?
“We all realized that we also wanted too show the band, and the upright bass, and the personalities, and these different people in the band. So we mixed that in with the story line, and the batman guy, who actually draws for the batman comic book, helped us illustrate and do the animation. I’m planting seeds for a lot of stuff with it. Like the comic book, and who knows, maybe some sort of Xbox game, you know this whole thing is about to take off hopefully.”
So are you visually inclined? Do you have Rob Zombie tendencies in you? Do you ever think about exploring the visual realm?
“I would love to do all that stuff, but there’s a lot of things I want to do first. But I think there is going to be a lot of visual stuff. Dan owns a media company so it’s kind of a great opportunity to practice. I produced the record and he produced all this other stuff. We bounce so well off of each other, its great.”
You used to be roommates with Jerry Cantrell (Alice in Chains). What do you think of the new album?
“I think its very good. I’ve got the record all ready. I heard it at barbecues over at Jerry’s house a couple of times. And you know you hear something and you’re like well, that’s what it is, and then you hear it again and again and again and its just got teeth into me now.”
Yeah, your Owl record kind of scared me at first but its definitely grown on me.
“Some of my favorite bands I didn’t quite get right out of the gate, because their coming at you from so many angles, that you cant get it right away.”
You play a lot of upright on the new Owl album. Did you start on upright? Did you play cello or something in school band?
“I’m a hardcore bassist. I was like I’m not a Cellist, I’m not a viola, I’m not a violin, so I kind of looked at it like ok, I’m going to conquer this thing now. I got write ups and stuffs when I was kid, at like 17. It was just like shredmeister, like Eddie Van Halen or Billy Sheehan (Steve Vai, Talas) on the bass, and I was just going crazy every night doing bass solos. I remember thinking to myself, what if I developed this Hendrixy, Van Halen sound effect stuff for the upright bass. It was a real challenge, getting the thing amplified properly. It was really years of work to get it to what became The Owl record. Live it sounds just like that, its distorted, its got delay, and it holds its own. That’s kind of a big part of my story. Amplifying that freaking thing. You know bringing the real one out, and it was never loud enough, your fingers were bleeding, you were uncomfortable, and it was a lot of work to get that right.”
Are you playing with picks, or how do you approach the upright?
“With The Cult I played a lot with picks, but I’d say almost 98 percent fingers. I’m all about the finger technique. But the pick stuff, well I guess on like “Sky Rocket,” on Owl, I strum it like a guitar, singer songwriter. But most of the other stuff is fingers, heavy duty bass stuff finger style, or the bow.”
So how is the new album being received?
“I get kind of two different experiences you know, I get to do Owl for a while, and we play shows, and I get a response doing that and that’s just been really fantastic. I mean, its been more than I expected. The crowd has been totally excited, screaming and yelling, responding to us like were a firework display. And then I go off with The Cult, and I put on a different hat. I’m more focused on my pick, and that’s more of a role where I sing back up vocals. Both are a great experience. I hear about owl when I’m out there with The Cult and I hear about The Cult when I’m out with Owl. Like oh, your the dude from The Cult, so its all kind of like one feeds the other. It’s tough though because Owl has got to be set up when I’m on the road with The Cult. But Dan and the guys are awesome. So usually when I get off of tour we have a plan.”
So what is the plan after this Cult tour. More shows? Music? New album?
“Well I’ve got kind of an entourage of friends that are in different bands and were probably going to do a US tour and maybe into Europe next year. And that’s going to be pretty exciting. Right now we’ve been doing New York and LA and the surrounding areas. The reviews and press have been extremely positive, and, well I’m pleasantly surprised. The way that people kind of, care about the music. I mean I knew I was releasing music in one of the saddest times, and I was like, wow, things are really shitty, but Dan and I still wanted to do it. And maybe its a great time. People are into the genuine musicality, and artistic concept, so I’m proud to put it out now actually.”
I’ve heard you talk a lot about how this band is all about music and that mainstream success is not the goal. It’s interesting to see how musicians have taken these side projects and turned them into something really meaningful.
“Yeah for us I mean, this is my baby, and Dan’s one of my best friends and Jason, and so it doesn’t really feel like a side project, we just get to do it. I mean sometimes bands have other bands, and band members have other bands, and its kind of like these times are a little different. Our attitude is definitely not, this is our side band, this is all of our primary, original project.”
I’ve heard members of The Cult talk about how their will be no new albums. Is owl in anyway a loop hole in this? Does it give you the opportunity to still release music?
“I think what Ian (Astbury) is saying, he’s not talking about records like how you treat them now. You can grab a couple songs and make a product. Basically now your selling a product, whatever that product is. Whether its video or music, and you can release that. That’s what we were saying earlier. You can just put out one song, with a really cool video, like with Owl, just to keep things fresh instead of waiting for a whole new record. Dan and I were just talking that after this European tour were going to bust out a song at his studio in New York when we get some downtime, and maybe do a video and some shows. So just stuff like that. Maybe that will be something that we do more often then not. I think that’s what Ian’s getting at. That you don’t have to put a record out. You just have to keep things fresh. With Owl we’re definitely going too be doing another record”
Well that’s great. Well, thanks for doing this with me, I appreciate the time. So this was my first interview, how did I do?
“Oh you did great. Just grab the cool stuff and make us sound real sexy.”
Xtrememusic.net
