Thursday, August 13, 2020

Pandemic Dispatches with Josh Kay of Alizarin

You know what I love about being a Midwest Based metal journo? I get totally ignore the coastal metal elites from the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Montreal, Toronto, Tampa, Boston, and NYC.


Those guys need to have their high horses taken down from beneath them. Flyover Country forever! (Until I move to either San Francisco or Philadelphia.)


So, let's talk about today's metal band from (checks notes) Los Angele...oh balls.


Check their music out on BANDCAMP.


1. How are things going where you are? The laws and such.


Thanks for having us! Things are going alright. At the time of writing this, the quarantine regulations have lightened up but mass protests have been taking place in most large US cities.


It’s certainly a strange, challenging, and unsettling time. 


2. How long have you been sheltering in place at this time?


It’s been almost 3 months of sheltering in place now, since about mid-March. I’m not sure most of us expected things to escalate to the point that they have.


A large portion of the mandatory stay at home orders has been modified or lifted (or even ignored) at this point, though. 


3. What has been cancelled on you that you were looking forward to?


Mostly various live shows. We try to catch local bands when we can, and countless touring bills have been canceled or rescheduled to 2021.


One of the shows I was looking forward to was the Decibel Mag tour with Abbath and Idle Hands. This tour was canceled right away, even before the full extent of the quarantines took effect. 


4. How have you been passing the time indoors?


We’ve been relentlessly finishing our new album ‘The Last Semblance’. Despite the inability to go out and play shows, this has been the perfect opportunity to get the whole record sorted out for release day, which is July 10th.


Otherwise, I’ve been writing material for a third release and listening to lots of fine music. 


5. Loads of artists have been talking about how they're being creative. When the lockdown is over are ya gonna be ready to hit up the studio?


We hit the studio this past January/February so that business was taken care of just in time. Plus, much of it was recorded at my home studio.


The technology available to artists now is astounding. We’ll be ready for live shows, music videos, and eventually the studio for the next record.


The lockdown did force us to find greater creativity on social media. Promoting and pumping out content online is the way of the future, and quarantine or not, we’re trying to take advantage of the digital landscape. 


6. What crazy projects have you been considering since you've been in quarantine?


Most of my projects are Alizarin-centric these days, so they consist of planning and trying to save money for bigger endeavors. The crazy part is probably how obsessive I can be.


I basically pour everything I can into this art and most of my waking hours are spent on the “behind the scenes” details that aren’t necessarily exciting to the public, but wholly important.


Quarantine has given the band more time to really dig into the details and hatch some post-album release agendas. 

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